
r RlTT £N BY 

.H.Alexander. 

•Id Captive the Indians for Years 




J. H. ALEXANDER 



INDIAN HORRORS 
of the FIFTIES 

Story and Life of the Only Known 
Living Captive of the Indian Hor- 
rors of Sixty Years Ago. 



Copywrited 1916 by the Author 



By J. H. ALEXANDER 

Synarep, Washington 



©G1.A499465 

JUN 27 1818 



INTRODUCTION. 



In presenting this book to the public we are giving 
to them a true and correct history of the life of the 
only living captive of the Indian horror of sixty years 
ago. It is a thrilling story, one full of excitement and 
horrors, and the reader will no doubt say, after read- 
ing this book, that the author went through many 
hardships and a great deal of suffering in order that 
he would some day see his loved ones from whom he 
had been parted by the hands of the savage red men. 

For many years the author wandered from place 
to place, receiving no education, working here and 
there, but finally settled down, giving up all hopes of 
ever seeing old friends or relatives; was married, and 
by hard work he has accumulated quite a little for- 
tune, and at the present time is the owner of 720 acres 
of land, besides plenty of live stock, etc. With his 
family, and at a ripe old age, he is now living happy 
and contented. 



CHAPTER I. 



The subject of this story was born in Virginia, and 
while a very small boy, six or seven years old, my 
father, after mother died, was all broken up and did 
not know what to do, but finally decided to go west. 
I was the only child in our family. I had an aunt 
living somewhere in Iowa. My father's name was 
Jesse Alexander and he called me Jesse. 

He said to me one day : "Jesse, how would you like 
to go to Iowa and see your Aunt Molly?" I told him 
I would like to go the best kind. 

"Well, son," he said, "We will go to see Aunt 
Molly." 

He got ready soon after that and started. I never 
had travelled any, and of course I saw many new 
things and I asked father all kinds of questions about 
different things. 

He said to me one day : "Jesse, you surely will be 
a very smart man if asking questions will have any- 
thing to do with it." 

5 



I said to papa : " Well, I never saw so many new 
things before/' 

I asked him one day how big a town Iowa was. Of 
course I was just an innocent little boy and did not 
know but what Iowa was a big town instead of a 
State. He explained to me that Iowa was not a town 
but a State, where lots of people, including Indians, 
lived. 

I asked him a thousand and one questions about the 
Indians — if they were people like us or what they were 
like. He was, I think, a little vexed at my asking so 
many foolish questions. I well remember him saying 
I was sure a little dandy to ask questions. 

We travelled along until we finally took the stage 
to go where Aunt Molly lived, and after a long jour- 
ney we came to her home. It was a small place — I 
don't remember the name of the town, but it was a 
little hamlet with but three or four houses and a log 
house for a hotel. There was a big pond or lake right 
by the little hamlet. I asked him if that was Iowa. 
He said "Yes" to please me, I suppose, "We have 
finally got to Iowa. How do you like it, son? Does 
it look like home to you ?" 

I answered: "No, it does not. Let's go home. I 
don't want to stay in such a place." 

Aunt Molly told me I was too far from home to 
think of going back. She petted me up and told me 



6 



that we would have a nice time fishing and hunting 
deer. Then I had a thousand and one questions to 
ask papa as to what deer was ; what did they look like ; 
and if they lived in the water like the fish did? He 
and Aunt Molly laughed lots at my childish questions, 
but both agreed I surely was a dandy to ask questions. 

Uncle James was her husband's name, for short. 
I do not remember what their real names were — only 
Aunt Molly and Uncle James, for short. He was a 
nice, good fellow, and when papa and Aunt Molly 
would josh me for asking so many questions, "Well, 
Jesse, I think they are too hard on you. Just tell them 
you want to know all about Iowa and you can't find 
out without asking some questions." 

Papa, Uncle James, Aunt Molly and I went fishing 
while we were there. Uncle James caught an awful 
big fish — the biggest one I ever saw, and I asked him 
if he would not catch a deer next time. I wanted to 
see one. He said he would try and catch one so I 
could see what a deer looked like. Then papa and 
Aunt Molly began to guy me again about asking such 
foolish questions. Finally papa got a turtle on his 
hook in some way which could not get loose, and he 
dragged it out on the bank. 

"Now, son, I have caught the deer," he said to me, 
"come and look at it." 



7 



I ran to see the deer. "My! Papa," I said, "It 
ain't like the deer was in Virginia — it has no horns." 

He got hold of its tail and said : "Look here — it has 
one big horn." I thought that beat anything I ever 
saw. Then they laughed at me until I cried. Uncle 
James said I was a nice little boy and they must quit 
making fun of me. He told me that was a turtle and 
and that deer did not live in the water like fish; that 
they lived on the prairie and in the timber, like cattle 
and horses did. Then I was satisfied. Uncle James 
always helped me out and I thought lots of him. I 
had worn papa out with foolish questions on our way 
out to Iowa and I guess he thought it was time to 
begin to break me of the habit. 

The country was very new at that time and very 
few settlers lived there and they were far apart, and 
the Indians made it hard for them. It was nothing 
uncommon to hear of a whole family being killed. 
Some of the people would leave and go back where 
they came from to get rid of being bothered with the 
Indians so much. Things went from bad to worse 
and the Indians came to this little hamlet in a pretty 
strong force one night and murdered most all of the 
settlers. Of course I do not know whether any one 
of them was left alive or not. I was spared and taken 
a captive. I do not know whatever became of papa 
and Uncle James and Aunt Mollie. Papa was a very 



8 



resolute man and I think he would have fought to the 
last moment of his life. 

After the massacre the Indians took me and went 
away from there and had a big time among themselves. 
I was scared to death. I did not know what to think 
or do among those savage Indians. They seemed to 
try to console me as best they could, but my — I thought 
it was awful. I could not understand them. They 
made all kinds of signs to make me understand, but 
I was so scared I could not understand anything, nor 
did I try. I wanted to go to papa, and Uncle James 
and Aunt Molly. I talked to them like I did to papa 
and they would just laugh and chatter among them- 
selves like it was funny. 

But it was everything but funny to me. I was so 
scared I did not know what to do with myself. I cried 
myself sick and the old medicine man fixed me up a 
lot of dope and they made me take it. I finally went 
to sleep and when I woke up I was in a big wigwam, 
laying on a big buffalo robe. I felt better but the scare 
came on me again and I was just about as bad as ever. 

Then they were getting things ready to move and 
it seemed to me they finally got everything packed and 
we started. I cried most of the time until I wore my- 
self out. I would tell them that I wanted to go to 
papa. They did not understand me, of course. I 
would point back the way we had came from. Then 



9 



they would chatter among themselves. I think they 
understood I wanted to go back. They would shake 
their heads and say, "Um ! Um !" 

They put me on a horse with a big stalwart buck. 
He tried, it seemed to me, to make it as comfortable 
as he could for me in every way. I got awfully thirsty 
for a drink. I told him I wanted a drink, but he could 
not understand. Finally we came to a little stream 
of water. I pointed to the water, then he jabbered 
something to me, and finally he took his hand and 
shut it up in such a way as to make a sign like he was 
dipping up water and then put it to his mouth like he 
was drinking. Then he looked at me and I shook my 
head as though I would say I wanted a drink. He 
got off and helped me off and I drank a big drink. 
Then they all had a big chatter among themselves. 
They would all evening make a motion with their 
hands like they were drinking and laugh and chatter 
about it like it was awfully funny. I guess they 
thought I had gained a great point to find out how 
I wanted a drink of water. They stopped pretty soon 
and stayed there a day and night, then the order of 
the day was to start for the main tribe. I could tell 
from their actions they shaped things up in a different 
way. They packed everything like they were going 
on a long journey. My prediction proved true. It 
was a long, tedious journey, sure enough, and when 
we arrived at the main tribe's home I was worn out 
again as there were some of them who never saw a 
pale face. 



10 



CHAPTER II 



The first day out we travelled north mostly; camp- 
ing in the wild prairie. Deer and antelope were plen- 
tiful. We had nice venison for supper without salt. 
It was my first meal without salt and I missed it very 
little, being too scared to notice it. 

The Indians tried in every way to soothe my sorrow 
but they had to wear me out before I got any relief. 
There was a big stalwart Indian who seemed to share 
my grief more plainly than the rest. He was called 
in their language, Wild Dog. He had the biggest and 
best heart in him of any of the tribe. He was always 
very attentive to me and looked after my welfare at 
all times. He seemed pained to think there was any- 
thing wrong with me and would have the medicine 
man fix me up something to take. But it was worry 
and anxiety to see my own people that I needed more 
than anything else. 

After supper we went to bed in their wigwams. 
We layed on buffalo robes in the rough. I did not 
sleep very much. One old buck persisted in snoring 
very loud. I wondered at any one of them sleeping 



11 



at all. I layed very still for of course I was scared 
to death anyhow. Wild Dog layed close to me. Pie 
would get up very carefully, slip over to me and listen 
to see how I was breathing in order to ascertain 
whether I was sleeping very sound. Then he would 
go over to the one who was raising the roof with his 
terrible snoring and give him a round up and every- 
thing would be very quiet for a while and I would 
get into a doze. Soon he would break loose again 
like a bear coming down a tree backwards, with all 
of his feet stuck through the bark of the tree. So it 
went on all night. 

About daybreak I was out rustling around to see 
what I could see. Wild Dog soon joined me, but I 
could not understand his motions any better than his 
language, although he tried very hard to make me 
understand him. 

By and by the whole party was astir. Little Chig 
Wing, the chief's little daughter, joined me and Wild 
Dog. It was very singular that her pa and I became 
mutual friends in a very short time and was for ever 
after that meeting. Inseparable we became — she was 
continually with me wherever I went with Wild Dog. 
I discovered when she missed me for half a day she 
was always crying and when she would spy me she 
would run and grab me around the neck and kiss me 
repeatedly. 



12 



We stayed in this camp until the sun showed it to 
be about the middle of the forenoon. Then things 
began to look like they were going to hurry on. The 
ponies were gathered together, pack saddles were 
strapped and the luggage on and we began to move 
slowly northward. We travelled all day until the sun 
was nearly setting, then camp was the order of the 
day. Little Chig W T ing and Wild Dog and I were out 
to see what we could see. We rambled around until 
night, came into camp and had nice venison without 
salt again. My, if I could have had some of it cooked 
as my dear mother would have cooked it, I could have 
eaten a quarter of it myself. But it was not so bad 
as I was very hungry. Chig Wing ate it like it was 
good. 

Their conversation ran in regard to me and the 
massacre. I could tell by their actions but not by their 
words. We finally went to bed again, but Wild Dog 
concluded he would make it a little more comfortable 
for himself and me. He took me to a large tree that 
had blown down, then he took a large robe and made 
a small tent up against the trunk of the tree. We 
huddled close together and was soon sleeping and 
knew no more troubles until the sun was shining 
bright. 

The rest of the party were up when we got up. 
Little Chig Wing came running to where we were 



13 



and caressed me as usual. I, of course, responded in 
the same way, as she seemed to think so much of me. 
I could not help but think of her also in the same 
way. The chief and her mother took great notice of 
us kids and seemed to enjoy setting and watching us 
romp. Chig Wing's mother got so, in a short time, 
she would take me in her arms and hug me very hard 
and kiss me like she would little Chig Wing. That 
would please little Chig Wing greatly. She and her 
mother would chatter over it and have a big time, but 
I could not enjoy their conversation, because I could 
understand nothing only by signs. 

We traveled some days all day and some days only 
part of the day and finally struck the main tribal force 
where there were many wigwams and many Indians. 
They had a big jubilee and I was the wonder of the 
times. Some of those Indians had never seen a white 
or pale-face before and they would take hold of my 
hands and look at them like they were looking at some- 
thing wonderful. I got very tired of the ordeal. It 
was not interesting to me like it was to them. Finally 
Wild Dog saw that I was tired out and the new bunch 
of Indians were never going to get tired out looking 
at my face and hands, so he took me and waved his 
hand and said something to them. 

We went away to a large stream of water and he 
caught some fine fish. We took them to the camp 



14 



and they were cooked as everything else was, with- 
out salt, so I did not enjoy them much. But the rest 
of the bunch seemed to enjoy them very highly. 

After our evening meal Wild Dog, little Chig Wing 
and I went out to see what there was to be seen. We 
had not gone very far until we met another party of 
the tribe who had been out on a foraging trip, like 
the one that had captured me. They had two Irish 
fellows with them and I will have to confess they were 
hard looking customers. I think they had been very 
hard to subdue and probably fought like tigers. They 
had been captives for two days only and the Indians 
had very little time to tone them down. 

The first thing in order was to give the new arrivals 
something to eat. Pat was one of their names. He 
was not much in the notion of eating, as he said in 
his natural Irish brogue: "Why in the divil didn't 
ye salt the fish more?" 

Of course the Indians did not understand what he 
said and Pat went on and minced over it until he got 
tired. 

"Well, be jabbers," he said, "I would rather be in 
Cork than here with these divils, starving to death. 
Well, old pal, when we do get back to old Cork we 
will have a divil of a story to tell the folks." 

15 



CHAPTER III 



Those poor Irish boys had been hunting gold with 
some other parties who had sent them out in search 
for new mines. They had gotten lost from their com- 
rades and came in contact with those roving Indians, 
and of course was captured and brought in to camp. 
They were like most of the Irish — very smooth and 
caught on to things very fast. They were anxious at 
all times to be with me and Wild Dog. It would tickle 
Wild Dog to hear us talk. The Irish boys would 
seem to have lots to laugh about. I felt much relief 
after I got a little acquainted with the Irish boys. 

We were watched very closely for a long time. In 
a little while the larger portion of the Indians went 
hunting in order to secure plenty of food for the win- 
ter. In a few days they began to roll in large bears 
and deer and elk. The two Irish boys were put to 
work to help dress the game. Pat had lots of fun 
about the knives made out of flint, and of course a 
saw would have beat them cutting all to pieces. Pat 



16 



would say out loud, "I wonder if any of thim red 
divils ever committed suicide by cutting their throats 
with them bloody things. I would much sooner be 
hanged by the neck than to have me throat cut with 
such a dagger as that." 

Time went on and they had a fine lot of meat 
"jerked." Pat called it "jerked" because they hung 
it up in great big tiers, put a fire under it and half 
cooked it without washing it. That was for winter 
hash. 

Bye and bye the winter came on and we stayed 
close to the wigwams. Only on nice warm sunshiney 
days we would go out a little. The two Irish boys 
had to carry lots of wood. Pat would complain often 
that this was the first time he ever made a horse of 
himself and he wished "thim red divils would be after 
hauling some of that bloody things thimselves." But 
I believe they would of froze to death before they 
would carry a single stick. 

Bye and bye the Indians got to taking the Irish boys 
out on hunting trips with them. They seemed to enjoy 
that pretty well. They got acquainted with the coun- 
try during the winter. One day I overheard them 
talking about how they were going to make their 
escape when spring came and the weather got warm 
so there would be no danger of freezing. They wanted 
to take me with them but they could not figure any- 



17 



way to separate me from Wild Dog and little Chig 
Wing as they were my constant companions. I would 
have liked to have gone, still I had become very much 
attached to little Chig Wing and Wild Dog, as they 
had ever been true friends to me. In fact Wild Dog 
had become nearly a father to me. 

The time wore on until finally spring came and the 
birds began to sing and the spring rains came and 
made the green grass grow. The water ran over low 
places and washed sand and dirt to smooth plains. 
Little Chig Wing and I would wander around. I had 
made her some corn stock horses like I made at home, 
only they were made out of a punk we got out of old 
rotten logs and I put tails in them made of horse hair 
and ears of buckskin. She thought they were some- 
thing grand and showed them to the chief and her 
mother and they just went wild over them. 

I had, by this time, got so I could understand nearly 
every thing they said but I could talk but little of 
their language. They talked of my great ability and 
that I should have little Chig W T ing for my squaw 
when we got to the right age and that they would see 
that I was a chief of their great nation and they would 
subdue the great pale-face people for I would under- 
stand how to go after them to win out. 

This news went out to other Indian nations and 
they were wild to see what kind of a creature I was. 



18 



They came hundreds of miles to see me and they were 
like my captors, taking hold of my hands and feet 
and looking at them with wide open eyes and chatter- 
ing all the time about them. They looked at the corn 
stock horses so much that I thought they would wear 
them out. Finally they wanted to trade for one so 
they could take it back with them and show their 
people what the little pale-face they had captive had 
made. He offered the best horse they had with them 
for one of those corn stock horses. The chief knew 
that I could make plenty more so he traded with him 
and gave the horse to me. You can imagine I was 
awfully proud to think I had a horse of my own and 
I got it for a corn stock horse. 

Finally those Indians who made the trade went 
back to their tribe and showed what they had and told 
them that I had made it. It set them wild to see me 
too in order to see what kind of a creature I was. 
They came in great mobs to look at me and to take 
hold of my hands and feet. I think they thought I 
was a great curiosity as they were determined to trade 
the chief out of me. They were so impressed with me 
they dickered a long time to get me away from the 
chief but he refused everything they offered. Finally 
they offered 20 head of horses, then 25 head and that 
was refused ; then 50 head and that was also refused ; 
then they offered 100 head of the best horses they had. 



19 



This the old chief looked on as a big price for a little 
pale face like me and he told them he would consider 
that offer a few days and let them know what he 
would do about it. They went back thinking that they 
had about made the deal. 

But after they had gone little Chig Wing and her 
mother got after the chief and told him that he should 
never make such a trade as that. He told them that 
he had no idea of accepting their offer; that he told 
them he would consider it just to get rid of them. 
He said further that they did not have enough horses 
to get me away from little Chig Wing. That pleased 
little Chig Wing and her mother so much they both 
hugged and kissed him repeatedly and there was joy 
in the camp and Wild Dog was more than overjoyed. 
He told me that if the chief had traded me off he would 
have gone and stole me back again. 

Everything now went smoothly along. Little Chig 
Wing and I went out nearly every day — most of the 
time alone. We waded the beaches and found lots of 
pretty rocks of many different colors and shapes. We 
came to a place one day where the surface was very 
smooth and pretty solid. I had before made pictures 
in such places and as I was pretty good at drawing 
pictures in sandy places, I went to work and drew a 
large turkey. It was very large and I drew the feath- 
ers on it nearly to perfection. I placed some nice little 



20 



colored rocks in its head for eyes. This set little Chig 
Wing wild with delight. I drew a nice stripped zebra, 
then put in nice rocks for his eyes. They were just 
the right size and color to show off nicely. She 
thought it was a wonder and wanted to know if I had 
always made such things as nice as that. I then drew 
a large male buffalo with enormous horns and placed 
large eyes in the proper places out of my supply of 
rocks. I had just the right size and color to look 
good. He was looking away off at some object as 
though he was enraged. She thought that beat every- 
thing. She had seen many buffaloes running the 
plains. When we went home to camp little Chig Wing 
told her mother and the old chief about what I had 
done on the beach. They just laughed at her and 
told her in their dull way that she and I were going 
crazy and that they would keep us at the camp after 
this. 

"No," she said, "come and go with us and see; then 
you will know what you are laughing about." 

The old chief and his wife took us, little Chig Wing 
leading the way. With great anxiety she wanted to 
see the sights again as bad as if she had only heard 
of these great things. You never saw such wonder- 
fully surprised creatures when they put their eyes on 
those things I had drawn in the sand. They stood 
aad looked in amazement at the drawings and then at 
me as if they expecteed me to take wings and fly away. 



21 



They were surely overcome and did not know what 
to think or what to do. It seemed they were actually 
afraid of me. For a time they looked those drawings 
all over and over as if they were quite sure they were 
going to come to life. 

Finally they got through looking them over and 
concluded to go back to camp. They talked about 
what a wonder I was anyhow. When we got back 
to the camp and all the Indians who were out hunting 
had returned, the chief called them all together in a 
great pow-wow. He told them of the great things 
I had done that day and what he expected of me in 
the future. In his remarks he made the statement that 
they had gotten the brains of the pale-face nation in 
their own hands as he had shown his ability very 
strongly that day, proving him to be one of the great- 
est of the pale-face race. 

"When I die," he said, "we will make him chief of 
our tribe and then we will capture the whole of the 
pale-face nation and make them all of our own kind 
and the pale-face nation will all be our people. This 
little fellow has shown to me to be extra smart." 

Most of the party got terribly fidgety before the 
chief got through with his remarks. They wanted to 
go and look at the great things I had accomplished. 
Finally the chief, after concluding his remarks, led 
them down to where the turkey, zebra and buffalo 



22 



were drawn in the sand. They were all spell bound 
at the sight of those mud pictures. They had never 
seen anything of the kind before and they could not 
comprehend it. Lots of them began to mistrust at 
once that I was a specimen of the great Spirit and the 
chief had hard work to control them. 

Finally Wild Dog took me up straddle of his neck 
and ran around with me among the other Indians. 
They all had to look at my hands and jabber about 
what those hands had done that day. Lots of them 
had me straddle their necks until I was worn out. 
They were so overjoyed at my ability that they all 
agreed with the chief that they had a great prize in 
me. 

The news spread to the other nations and they came 
from far and near to see the great wonders I had 
made and tried in every way to induce the chief to 
trade me to them. But he said that they did not have 
enough horses to buy me from little Chig Wing. 

There was an old Indian woman who came one 
day to see those great miracles I had made. She 
asked me all about where I had seen the big bird that 
I could make one in the sand so nice. She told me 
of a large bird that her parents of long ago had told 
her about that carried off one of their children and 
that it could run faster than any of their horses with 
the child in its bill. She showed me how much bigger 



23 



it was than the turkey according to her ideas of that 
bird. It must have weighed 700 or 800 pounds. I, 
of course, was terribly interested in that big bird carry- 
ing off their child and I got her to show me as best 
she could, how much bigger this bird was than the 
turkey. She took great pains in showing me all she 
could as I told her that I wanted to make one like I 
had the turkey. I found out also that the monster 
bird had no feathers, but a wooly or long down cover- 
ing. This old woman had never seen one of those 
large birds but she said that she had this story from 
her parents. She was also told that the bird was 
killed in its nest where it had five young ones feeding 
on a fawn. They found the bones of the little fellow 
besides the nest, as well as all kinds of bones. The 
birds had to be fed by the old ones until they were 
great big things and long after they left the nest. She 
said that after the old bird and young ones were 
killed there never was any more seen and they sup- 
poseed that those two were all that were left living 
at that time and the male bird was never discovered. 
It was supposed by the people that he was very shy 
and when he found that his mate and little ones were 
gone that he emigrated to parts unknown. They never 
saw nor heard of those large birds any more. 

24 



CHAPTER IV 



The best that I could make out of the old lady's 
story was that those birds were an extinct species after 
that and that was many years ago at the time of this 
incident. I am quite sure the old lady was thinking 
of her old parents at the time she was telling about 
those large birds and she seemed to take quite an in- 
terest in me. She would look at me and pat me on 
the head and tell me what a nice little boy I was. She 
said she would like to have me in her family and that 
she would love me as much as she would her own. 
She said also she would not take me away from little 
Chig Wing and break her little heart. She was very 
sympathetic and when she went to take her leave she 
went to the chief and his squaw and had a long talk 
with them about me and when she went to leave she 
patted me on the head and kissed me and said that 
when I got "skookum" I should come and see her. 
That meant when I had grown big, stout and grown- 
up. 

25 



The two Irish boys did not get the attention that I 
did. All the extra attention was lavished on me and 
all the good things what they brought with them was 
given to me and little Chig Wing. Different kinds of 
birds were hunted and killed for us to eat. In the 
spring time there was a nice flower that grew up in 
a hard bed of ground in different sizes. They would 
dig up the roots and cooked them some way so at first 
I did not care for them, but after a time I could eat 
and enjoy them ever so much. The Indians were 
after it early in the spring just as the white people 
were after greens. They dug lots of other roots and 
such things to eat. 

The Irish boys liked most of all those things that 
the Indians dug out of the ground. Pat said one day 
"It was a divil of a pity that them red divils didn't 
have a hog snout on them so they could get an easy 
living out of the ground-" 

About this time I noticed that Pat had begun to take 
quite an interest in an Indian girl. She was actually 
pretty for an Indian girl and she was as smart as a 
whip also. Her name was Waunagie. They called 
her father Wild Horse. I never could find out where 
they got such names for the different ones of the tribe. 

Pat seemed to think the Indian girl was alright. He 
got so he was with her as much of the time as he 
could and it seemed to me she took to Pat as much 



26 



as he to her. This appeared to please all the Indians 
and none more than Wild Horse and his squaw. They 
seemed to just worship Pat after that and Pat and 
Waunagi would go out and be gone nearly all day on 
some occasions. They got so they would take little 
Chig Wing and I along. We would have a big time 
picking strawberries and after a time Wild \Dog 
taught me to shoot with the bow and arrow. I soon 
was able to kill all kinds of birds and could even beat 
some of the Indian boys who were much larger than 
I was, and Wild Dog would laugh at them for letting 
the little pale face beat them at their own game. Then 
it would seem to make them angry for Wild Dog to 
pat me on the head and say I was getting "skookum," 
which meant, as I said before, stout and big. 

There was no doubt in my mind at any time that 
Wild Dog didn't love me with all his heart and soul. 
I know he would go his length for me at any time, 
night or day. 

Pat and Waunagie seemed to want to be together 
nearly all the time after that. I told Pat one day that 
he had fallen in love with Waunagie and that I be- 
lieved they were going to get married some day. Pat 
said he didn't know about that as yet. 

At this time the Indians took a notion that they 
would go out on another foraging expedition. Of 
course a large number of them stayed at the camp. 



27 



The ones that went were gone three or four weeks 
or more. They tackled on this journey, wherever 
they went, a moving train, and apparently got the 
worst of it. They lost several of their warriors aild 
horses. I think, from what I could learn, that they 
tackled a train that had a band of soldiers guarding 
them. One of the Indians told me the "skookum pale- 
face shot mighty fast, killing quick a lot of Indians 
and horses." 

They did not bring any persons with them this time 
and after they had rested up and layed around until 
they got pretty well rested up they began to get ready 
for a big hunting expedition tn preparation for winter. 
On this hunt they took the two Irish boys along as 
they considered Pat an expert at skinning any kind 
of an animal. Poor Waunagie cried when she found 
out that Pat was going but Pat took it all in good part. 

He told her he would come back to Waunagie again- 
That seemed to please her greatly. 

When they started Waunagie kissed Pat and cried 
like her heart would break. Then they started and 
were gone three or four weeks and brought in a fine 
lot of venison and buffalo and some bear meat. Then 
Waunagie was happy again. She surely "loved Pat 
to a finish." She showed it so plainly it could not 
be denied and I think Pat loved her just about as 
much as she did him. 



28 



When they had chopped up what game was brought 
in they rested for awhile and then took another round- 
up after winter supplies. They met with great success 
and were gone only ten days, bringing in a nice lot 
of pigeons. They put this meat upon a large rock 
and built a fire under it to make it dry fast and so 
it would keep good. 

They always looked forward to laying in a big sup- 
ply to last until the game had a chance to come back 
in the spring after the grass had grown. They did 
not kill anything to amount to much in the dead of 
winter. This winter that they had just prepared for 
proved to be a very hard one — lots of snow and it 
seemed as if spring would never come. 

My, but I was glad when the snow began to melt 
and show signs of spring. I could see a different look 
in all of the Indian faces and Pat and Waunagie longed 
for it to come so they could take their usual strolls 
in the shade trees of the forest. 

When the spring did come we were all happier. 
Little Chig Wing and I ran over the woods hunting 
what we could find. We went upon the cliffs of rocks 
and found all kinds of stones on one of our trips. We 
found a slate rock the rain and hot sun had made. 
It cracked and shelled off something like a piece of 
slate. I found one very thin one which I thought I 
could make a real slate out of if I could find a rock 



29 



hard enough to rub the slate rock smoother, so I tried 
it and succeeded in getting a nice smooth edge on it. 
But now I had no pencil of any kind to write with. 
Then I happened to remember where we had seen 
some red rock and I recalled the red keel that I found 
in Virginia along the beaches, and I told little Chig 
Wing we would go and get some and would make 
some nice pictures on that rock that I had made so 
nice and smooth. She was right in for that and so 
we went and found all kinds of the finest red keel. 
I made her a picture of a large peafowl with its feath- 
ers spread. She thought that was just grand. Then 
I made a picture of a squirrel, then of an owl, then 
of a big male buffalo, then of a large dog. 

She was extremely pleased w r ith all these things. 
Then I made a lot of A, B, Cs. She could not under- 
stand what they were, but some of the tribe had seen 
some letters like those on a paper somewhere and he 
was just as enthusiastic over them when he saw them. 
Both he and the chief were as much pleased over 
these pictures as the ones I had made in the mud- 
He called all the tribe together and had a general pow- 
wow over it. He made the statement that he had 
always thought that I was something great and now I 
had proven it beyond a doubt the second time. All 
the tribe had to take a look at me just like they had 
never seen me before and some of them would take 



30 



my hand and look them over and show their bewilder- 
ment. Then some of them advanced the idea that 
I was a kind of a Great Spirit and if they did not 
restore me to my people that something terrible would 
happen to them yet. 

The old chief talked to them at considerable length, 
telling them that they were foolish to talk so, that I 
was only a little innocent pale-face who had done no 
harm nor could do none to any one. He told them 
again that one thing they were sure of was that they 
had the brains of the pale-face nation right in their 
midst and that I would show them great things some 
day. The old chief was a long-headed old fellow and 
when he spoke he always said something. 

They all finally agreed with the chief that what he 
had said was alright and they all believed that I would 
make a great pale-face chief and that some day the 
pale-face nation would all be Indians same as they 
were. That seemed to please the whole tribe and they 
all spread the news to other tribes. They came from 
far and near to see the great freaks of the little pale- 
face. They seemed to think it beat anything that this 
tribe should have been so fortunate in getting hold 
of such a smart little pale-face as I had shown to be. 

They came around hoping to trade the chief out of 
me this time sure. They finally offered him a thousand 
horses for me. He told them there was not enough 



31 



horses in the world to buy me from little Chig Wing. 
They finally departed, but the old chief and all the rest 
of the tribe kept a close eye on me that little Chig 
Wing and I did not get away very far from the camp. 
I think they were afraid that I would be kidnapped 
by some other tribe, as they wanted me so bad as to 
offer a thousand horses for me. Hence little Chig 
Wing and I never got much liberty after that. They 
were so afraid that I would be captured by some other 
tribe- After that the whole tribe seemed to just wor- 
ship me. If any one of them thought anything was 
wrong with me they would go to the chief and tell 
him and he would have the medicine man look me 
over to see if anything was wrong with me. This 
ordeal lasted quite a spell but finally passed away. 
However, they always continued to make much of 
me at all times. I was certain that they all loved me 
as they did their own lives. They showed it every 
day. I was picked up and carried around many 
times when I would rather have been playing with 
little Chig Wing, but I knew they all thought so much 
of me that I could not refuse them the pleasure they 
got out of it, but it was an every-day occurence. 

About this time Pat got very sick and he apparently 
got worse every day. He was so very sick that Wau- 
nagie stayed by his side night and day until they had 
to take her away by force so she would get a little 



32 



rest. However she screamed so loud and they were 
afraid she would go crazy, so they let her go back to 
poor Pat. She used good common sense when she 
got back to him and did not act silly whatever, but 
said if he had to die she also wanted to die. The poor 
girl was in a terrible plight. Pat took her by the hand 
and patted it and told her he was so glad to have her 
so close again. They realized that it worried him to 
have her taken away and they told both of them that 
it would never occur again. That seemed to please 
them both and they smiled in acknowledgment- 
Pat, after a time, seemed to get better. The med- 
icine man, I am quite sure, did everything in his power 
to help him. He worked night and day with him 
until Pat was out of danger. He was so worn out 
he went to bed and stayed two days and nights — was 
only up twice in that time. He surely was a faithful 
Indian. 

Pat was sick a very long time. He recovered very 
slowly but he had the never-ceasing care of Waunagie. 
He had a cool drink at every wish and everything else 
that was in her power to give. That spell of sickness 
sealed the future for Pat and Waunagie. 



33 



CHAPTER V 



Pat soon got to taking nourishment regularly, but 
it took him a long time before he was fully recovered. 
VVaunagie took all the pains she could to give him 
every comfort possible, just as much so as if he had 
been her husband, which the reader can imagine will 
be the case at some future date. Pat finally got so 
he could sit up a little. He gained very slowly at first, 
but after he got up and around his recovery was very 
rapid and soon got very "skookum," as the Indians 
called gaining in strength or size. 

As soon as Pat could walk a little he and Waunagie 
would go for a stroll. Waunagie was so afraid of a 
setback that she would not let him go as far as he 
wanted. She surely loved Pat and showed it in her 
every-day plans. 

At this time Pat had gotten back nearly to his former 
self and he was very natural again. He finally recov- 
ered and was robust and hearty. He and Waunagie 
were out rambling around most every day. Wild 

34 



Horse and his squaw looked upon their rambles as 
being alright — in fact I think they knew Pat and 
Waunagie would marry. Pat was always a very wel- 
come caller at their wigwam. I know they thought 
Pat was an "alright" Irishman- 
One evening little Chig Wing and I went down to 
Wild Horse's wigwam to take Mrs. Wild Horse some 
strawberries we had picked. We thought it would 
please them and so it did. She showed it in every way 
possible how much she was delighted. She told me 
that when little Chig Wing got to be my squaw she 
would come to see us in our wigwam. We had been 
there quite a while and just as we were getting ready 
to go we heard someone coming. We waited a moment 
to see who it was and it turned out to be Pat and 
Waunagie. They came up to the door of the wigwam 
with smiles on their faces. Wild Horse had just come 
in a short time before. They asked Wild Horse to 
come to the door and both he and his squaw rose 
to see what they wanted. Pat said in very fair Indian 
language that he could not get along without Wau- 
nagie and he wanted to know if either of them had 
any objections to their getting married. 

I thought it beat anything I had ever heard of. Mr. 
Wild Horse took Pat by the hand and patted it and 
told him in a very nice way that he could have his 
Waunagie for his squaw for all time and Mrs, Wild 



35 



Horse said she was more than happy to know that 
Waunagie would marry a great white chief. Pat was 
a nice bright looking fellow. He was brilliant acting 
and would have naturally looked so anywhere he went 
as his general appearance was very fascinating. 

Mrs. Wild Horse wos so overjoyed she could not 
be still or keep from showing how happy she would 
be when her Waunagie was married to the big white 
chief. The news that W r aunagie and Pat were going 
to marry was soon spread all over the tribe and there 
was general rejoicing. The Indians all looked at Pat 
when they passed him as if he was some wonderful 
creature and I am quite sure that if they had such a 
thing as a hat they would have tipped it to Pat when 
they met him. They surely did show him all the honor 
in their power. 

Well time rolled on until the day set for the wed- 
ding. The chief always set the date for such occa- 
sions. Of course Pat and Waunagie were consulted 
by the chief in order to see if the date he selected 
would suit them. 

At the time of the wedding there was a general 
stir. The ceremony was a very tame affair. I could 
not explain it as it was like the language a party had 
once told me of. He described it as the queerest lan- 
guage he had ever heard. I asked him to give me 
some idea of how it sounded. He said it was impos- 



36 



sible. Of course that aroused my curiosity more than 
ever and made me desire to get an idea of something 
that it sounded like. 

"Well," said my friend, "It sounded like double 
Dutch spoken by a Choctam Indian suffering from 
chronic croup." 

Now that explains the marriage ceremony of Pat 
and Waunagie- After the wedding there was a great 
"Hurrah" all night. I never heard such a time in my 
life. I could not explain what happened on forty 
pages of foolscap. Talk about your common services, 
they were not a drop in the bucket to compare with 
what went on that night af ter Pat and Waunagie were 
married. They had a regular jubilee for a week. 
It was real amusing to see how happy Pat and Wau- 
nagie were. They were just as happy as they could 
be. Pat was so jolly and Waunagie wore a nice rich 
copper collar with a fine form. Wild Horse had a 
nice wigwam built right at the side of his own for 
Pat and Waunagie and they went to it as soon as it 
was completed and lived very happy by themselves. 

I know the Indians treated Pat like he was "some 
pumpkins." He was a nice looking fellow and well 
behaved. He would get lots of jokes on Waunagie. 
She got use to them and would just laugh at him. 
They got along just like they were both pale-faces. 
Pat was always running after her if she was belated 



37 



on a short sojourn to some place and she was the 
same way with Pat. If he was delayed she would 
jump on a pony and go like the wind until she found 
him. I used to think she surely loved the ground he 
walked on and I believe he was the same way about 
her. 

It was now getting along in the season and they 
were talking about going out on a big hunting expedi- 
tion to again prepare meat for winter- I began to 
wonder how Waunagie would stand it to have Pat 
leave her for so long a time as she had been so attent- 
ive to him since their marriage. But it so happened 
that Wild Horse left Pat at home this time to look 
after Mrs. Wild Horse and Waunagie, so she was 
happy. 

They were gone four weeks and brought in a nice 
lot of venison, buffalo and bear meat. Pat went to 
work and helped put it up in braces to dry and half 
cooked it. During their absence he got a lot of wood 
ready. Old Wild Horse was much pleased with his 
son-in-law — ''big skookum man." He said the Indians 
all worshiped Pat. They thought he was "just about 
it." Pat could now talk the Indian language to per- 
fection. They got so whenever a new proposition 
came up they would consult him in every particular. 
I think they really paid more attention to what Pat 
said than to what the chief said to them. Pat got so 



38 



he would make great big speeches to them in the In- 
dian language. Of course he was hoodwinking them 
in good shape, making them think he was a "skookum" 
man. He got so he was very near governor of the 
tribe. 

When Pat called for a meeting of the whole tribe 
to give them a speech everyone would be present and 
listen with all ears. They thought that whatever Pat 
said was just right, and having married one of their 
tribe gave them implicit confidence in him and every- 
thing he said. Whenever a dispute came up among 
them they would lay their case before Pat and what- 
ever conclusion he came to was accepted by all of 
the people concerned- 
Pat could talk the Indian language as well as they 
could themselves. And he had a very stern way about 
him when he spoke, so the Indidans would pick up 
their ears like they were going to be persecuted in 
some way. Pat was very sharp, and he soon observed 
how he could "work" the Indians his own way. This 
was easy after he had obtained their good will. He 
knew how to keep it too. 

Pat let it be known that he would make a speech on 
what the great white Father would do for them if they 
were only to ask as he wanted them to. That made 
them anxious to hear it right away and Pat made the 
speech. He told them that the great white Father 



39 



loved them as he did his white children, but that 
they did not do as his white children did. He told 
them that the white Father would give them homes 
to live in and wagons and buggys to ride in, and it 
would be so much nicer to live that way than to have 
to ride bare back horses all the time, and pull their 
meat in on poles tied together. 

He gave them many reasons why it would be so 
much better for them to live like the pale-faces. They 
seemed to take a good deal of stock in what he said 
on the subject and they talked it over among them- 
selves. They related it to others and they would come 
to see Pat and ask him to make the speech over to 
them and they would look at him while he was mak- 
ing the speeches as if he was something uncommon. 

But they sure all looked on Pat as being a great 
white chief. They took every possible way of show- 
ing him that they could. If it had been possible for 
them to have tipped their hats to him I am sure they 
would have done so- He spoke the Indian language 
very plainly and had no trouble making himself under- 
stood. 

Pat even got so he was considered a great chief 
among the tribe; in fact many of the Indians paid 
more attention to Pat than they did to the old chief. 
Whenever any controversy arose among them he was 
always consulted and he most always settled them in 
a satisfactory way to all parties. Hence they were 
as grateful to Pat as little boys and girls are to their 
parents. 



40 



CHAPTER VI 



Pat took great pains in shaping up their troubles 
and they got so that they ran after him a great deal 
more than they did the chief. I believe the chief lec- 
tured them about it, at times, pretty strong. In fact 
I think he was jealous of Pat to a certain extent. 

Cold weather came on soon and we all stayed in the 
wigwams pretty close all winter. Things were very 
dull, nothing doing but once and awhile the warriors 
would go out on a light hunting expedition and bring 
in fine braces of deer and elk, and now and then a 
bear carcas. That was always a welcome change, 
after eating dry, half-cooked venison so long. We 
all wished for spring to come long before it made its 
appearance. 

The first sign of spring was always hailed with great 
delight. When it did finally come the Indians moved 
their wigwams to another location, as was their cus- 
tom. When they moved this time it was to a lovely 
location by a nice stream of clear water. It was real 



41 



amusing to move. They would cut saplings and tie 
them together and put their belongings on them cross- 
wise, then hitch up to a large home-made saddle, and 
off they would go to their new homes, happy as larks- 
Pat and Waunagie were as jolly as any of them. 
Waunagie had not been very well all the winter and 
she was more than glad to move. She thought it 
would do her good and so did Pat. He seemed to 
think Waunagie was the only Indian woman in the 
whole camp. 

When they arrived at their new homes they seemed 
more interested in seeing Pat's and Waunagie's wig- 
wam shaped up more than their own. First I went 
to see Pat and Waunagie often. It done Waunagie 
lots of good to hear Pat and I talk in our language. 
She got so she could talk some and understood every- 
thing we said. She and Pat got along together like 
a pair of kittens. She surely was a lovely Indian 
woman. She had no rude ways, but seemed to be 
very lady-like, which was an exception among the 
Indian tribes. 

After the Indians had their wigwams set up and 
ready for occupancy, the warriors went on a trip, 
or a foraging expedition, and were gone a long time. 
On this trip they were not very successful. They 
brought back very little stuff to show for their trip. 
They came in contact with a lot of renegades and 



42 



horse thieves and in the fight which followed, got the 
worst of it. Five or six of them were killed and the 
renegades did not lose a man, who intrenched behind 
a dense baricade so it was impossible to dislodge them. 
The Indians said this band of pale-faces was the hard- 
est to do anything with that they had ever struck. 
Apparently they were all expert shots and when they 
took aim they always got their man. 

The tribe planned for a long time to go back and 
take another whirl at the renegades, but they finally 
concluded the pale-faces were too strong for them. 
They tried to get Pat to go in with them but he advised 
them to let them alone as they were hard customers 
and dead shots, which the Indians had already learned 
to their sorrow. 

The Indians had a great desire to roam and wan- 
der — going and coming nearly all the time- When 
they were in camp they did nothing, but made the 
squaws do all the work, carry the wood and water, etc. 
Pat, however, never allowed his wife to carry wood 
and water and she thought Pat "was about a right 
old boy." 

Along in the fall of the year Waunagie presented 
Pat with a fine little son and the whole tribe came to 
look on that baby and other tribes also came from far 
and near to see the little papoose. They looked at 
its hands and feet as if it was something very strange. 



43 



That baby was the talk of the whole tribe. They 
looked on it as a new proposition in the Indian world. 
Little Chig Wing took a great interest in the little 
papoose and she and I often went to the wigwam of 
Pat and Waunagie to see the baby. We were always 
welcomed and after it got so it could sit alone and 
began to coo, little Chig Wing thought she could not 
leave it alone at all. Waunagie surely thought more 
of it than the other Indian women did of their pa- 
pooses. I did not know whether it was because it 
was half white or for another reason, but it surely 
had the attention of the whole tribe. It was a very 
beautiful child, and as it grew older, day by day, it 
became very cute and drew more attention than ever. 
Pat and Waunagie were very proud of it and they 
made it nice buckskin slips, braided nicely w T ith differ- 
ent colored birds, and little moccasins, also very nicely 
braided. 

Pat was a very fair skined man and the baby took 
after him more than Waunagie. It was nearly white 
with a slight copper color. It grew and screamed as 
i f it were very healthy and soon got to be a very big 
baby. It surely was the talk of the tribe and got more 
carressing than all of the other papooses in the whole 
tribe. In fact it was a wonder how the entire tribe 
interested themselves in that baby. When he was able 
to walk all the youngsters in the tribe would nearly 



44 



fight one another to see who would take him out walk- 
ing. However, Waunagie kept a good watch over him 
to see that he did not walk too much as the youngsters 
would keep him out too long unless they were watched. 
Then the father and mother would be worried until 
Waunagie had to refuse to let him go out but seldom. 

The summer quickly passed and fall was at hand 
again and the Indians were preparing to go hunting 
to lay in the winter supply of venison, elk and bear 
meat. They went out in great droves and Pat brought 
in the wood to dry and half-cook the meat when it 
was brought in. They were gone about two weeks on 
the first trip and brought back a nice lot of fine meat. 
Pat had everything in readiness to hang it up and they 
all rested up in a few days then went out again and 
returned with another lot of fine venison, elk and 
bear. They kept this up until they had enough to run 
them until spring. 

While they were gone Pat smoked and dried the 
first lot and had it ready to pack down. This was 
appreciated by the Indians and I know from the way 
they acted they thought he was just about "it." The 
Indians prepared for the winter by securing plenty 
of things to eat, but in no other way. The wood bad 
to be carried all winter through the snow by the 
squaws. It seemed awful for those great big lumber- 
jacks of Indian men to lay around and let their wives 



45 



carry all the wood. However, it seemed to be the 
custom and they never complained. 

The Indians were much different in their affections 
for each other than the white race. They never 
showed any signs of love for one another than if noth- 
ing of the kind existed. Or at least I never witnessed 
any indication of such a thing. When one of the 
tribe became sick the rest seemed to think nothing of 
it, and when death came to a member there was no 
emotion whatever shown. The corpse was disposed 
of and nothing was said or done to indicate that there 
was a death in the tribe. The burial in those days 
was mostly in a very stony place to keep the wild ani- 
mals from molesting the graves. They piled stones of 
large dimensions all over the graves. After a burial 
the Indians would do nothing for several days but 
mope around and not talk much. I never could under- 
stand why they did so as they never shed a tear at 
the burying ground, nor did they ever have anything 
to say about the dead at the time of burial or after it. 
They never visited the burying ground like the white 
people do. When there was a funeral nearly the whole 
tribe would go and participate in the burying. The 
wigwam that the dead had been taken from was left 
vacant for a long time after the burying — at least 
six months elapsed before it was ever occupied again. 
When the proper time had elapsed and the wigwam 



46 



was going to be occupied again, they had a great cere- 
mony of some kind and called on the great Spirit to 
take the bad things out of the wigwam. They had 
some way of distinguishing when the bad things were 
gone, or at least they thought they had. They were 
naturally very superstitious and yet thought they were 
smart in every sense of the word. It was amusing to 
see how much stock they all took in Pat. He surely 
had full sway. Whatever Pat said always "went." 
He was a very smart Irishman; took notice of all 
things and understood the Indians thoroughly. 

He knew that the old chief was losing ground with 
his own tribe all the time and that he himself was 
gaining ground. Pat was looked upon by all the 
neighboring tribes as being a great white chief. After 
a time they thought whatever he said was law and 
gospel. He made several speeches telling them what 
the great white Father would do for them if they 
would go to work and do like the pale-faces did. It 
apparently had a great effect on them. Some of them 
were in favor of adopting Pat's scheme, but others 
were bitterly opposed to such a course. I think the 
old chief had a great deal to do with that proposition. 
He realized that Pat was gaining the good will of his 
people and he naturally saw that he was being ignored 
by them, to a great extent. Whenever any contro- 
versy arose in the tribe it was invariably taken to Pat 



47 



for his decision and he was smart enough to decide it 
in such a way as to give universal -satisfaction. 
Of course by this time Pat had the language com- 
pletely mastered, and he could tell them very plainly 
why he had decided as he did. He was praised by 
the whole tribe as being the great white chief. He was 
as sharp as a tack and always had his eyes open to 
the best proposition in order to gain favor with the 
Indians. 

The Indians were a great people to resent a wrong, 
but yet they were very sympathetic and true to a friend 
"to the jumping off place." On the other hand to a 
foe they felt very bitter and could not treat such a 
one cruel enough. 

Apparently they had some idea of a hereafter and 
of a great Spirit above. They never said much about 
it- Then, too, they had but a little idea of time. The 
way they counted years was by referring to so many 
"snows." They would hold up one finger in discuss- 
ing a question concerning one year, or two fingers for 
two "snows," and so on until they had all their fingers 
up. If it took all of them to express the number of 
years, and that was insufficient, they would double up 
their hands and then commence as before, and so on 
until the right number of years were counted. 

They had very funny ways of expressing them- 
selves. Another thing about them was that they had 



48 



very little controversy among themselves, but if it did 
occur they said very little about it. Then when they 
got to taking their troubles to Pat for a decision, he 
was always smart enough to give the one who needed 
reprimanding he would do it in such a nice way that 
they always hated to have the same thing occur again. 
It finally got so it was a very rare occurence that any- 
thing went wrong with any of the tribe. Pat finally 
got the Indians so hypnotized that if he had told them 
that it would be best for them to go and drown them- 
selves, I think they would have done it. Pat surely 
held the strings over the Indians and they were all 
on Pat's side all the time.. It made no difference what 
came up, Pat was naturally such a smart fellow and 
had an eye to business, that he never let a chance slip 
to gain a point — and that was nearly every day. 

He would take great pride in telling the Indians 
about what a great country he came from and the great 
big "skookum" sailing ship he crossed the sea in, and 
how the wind nearly blew it over several times. They 
would gap and stretch their necks as if it was taking 
a great effort on their part to do so. They said it 
must have been a "skookum" wind to nearly blow 
over such a big house on the waters as the one he 
had described. 

Pat used to joke the Indians all he could and they 
got so they liked it very much. They had never done 



49 



anything of the kind nor did they seem to comprehend 
it for a long time, but after they were able to under- 
stand it they began joking each other, and also joke 
Pat and Waunagie to a finish. They naturally got to 
thinking that the sun rose and set in Pat.- If he ever 
made a suggestion everyone of the Indians would 
agree with him. They would "go their length" any 
time for Pat — it made no difference what it was. If 
Pat had asked them to carry him around as chief they 
would nearly have fought to see which one of them 
should have the honor first- Pat surely had the wool 
pulled over their eyes pretty well. 

He had a great way of joking Waunagie. Then 
she would just laugh at him and sometimes joke Pat 
in return. She got so she was not slow on the joke. 
The other Indians also took it up and it got to be a 
great fad with them. They were so taken with Pat 
that they would discus his ideas of becoming civilized 
like the pale-faces at considerable length. 

Pat had told them that the pale-face race always 
had plenty of good clothes to wear and plenty to eat 
at all times and did not have to go out in the snow 
and march in it all day to get something for supper 
and breakfast. They thought that was very nice. 

Well, winter came and it was very cold and stormy. 
It snowed in torrents about the middle of the winter. 
It had seemingly about quit snowing and the weather 



50 



had begun to show that everything was smoothed 
down for the balance of the winter. One morning 
everything looked like it was going to be a nice day, 
and, as usual, the Indians had not been out on a hunt 
all winter and they began to want some fresh meat, 
as they were very tired of the old dried and half- 
cooked meat, so Wild Dog asked me if I did not want 
to go along that day, and, of course, kid like, I was 
always ready to go, so Wild Dog fixed up my horse 
and put me on and away we went. 

We struck a large herd of elk about noon. They 
killed six or eight of them and it was great sport 
They sent them in to camp by some of the party and 
they resumed the hunt to see if they could find some 
deer. About half an hour before the sun set they ran 
on to a nice herd of about forty or fifty deer. The 
snow was so deep that it did not take long to kill half 
a dozen, then they strapped them on to the ponies and 
started for camp. It began to look very hazy and 
cloudy. Some of the Indians seemed to be alarmed. 
They knew all the signs of their country and they 
made all speed possible towards camp. 

We had not gone very far when all at once it com- 
menced blowing and snowing so that you could not 
see ten feet ahead of your horse. The horses got so 
excited it was more than I could do to manage mine, 
and the rest had all they could do to manage their own 



51 



without bothering- after me, so I got behind in spite 
of everything and no one could see anything. My 
horse got so unruly and he kicked up so high that 
I fell off and he ran back to camp. 

Of course no one could see who was who and did 
not notice the horse without a rider until they got 
to Camp and Chig Wing knew that it was my horse 
and that I was missing. She and her mother just 
went wild as they thought I probably had got killed 
or would freeze to death. 

As soon as the ponies were unloaded the chief 
offered 100 head of horses to anyone who could find 
me first. Most of them split the wind in search of 
me, but by this time it was dark. I had lost no time 
in hunting a place for the night. I wandered around 
till I found a very large hollow tree with a large quan- 
itty of rotten wood in it. I threw it out to the entrance 
and had a pretty good place, as it was not very cold. 
Of course I knew that as soon as they all got in camp 
and found my horse there without me on him, the 
whole bunch would be on the hunt for me, so I was 
not much alarmed but what I would be rescued. Wild 
Dog and Crazy Bear, as they called him, (this was 
another Indian who always seemed to think I was 
just about right) came spliting through the brush, 
making enough crazy noises to frighten the bears out 
of the woods. They done this so I might hear them 



52 



and let them know where I was. I don't think Wild 
Dog was ever so happy as when he stopped at the 
big hollow tree and spied me- He just fairly groaned 
for joy. He and Crazy Bear rolled me up like I was 
a baby and took me to camp just as fast as it was 
possible to go. The rest of the Indians had all came 
in and given up the hunt, but they all stayed up all 
night rejoicing that I had been found and returned 
to camp, none the worse for my trip. Little Chig 
Wing and her mother nearly had a fit when Wild 
Dog and Crazy Bear unrolled me and they saw that 
I was all right. They just rained kisses on me and 
hugged me awfully hard. The whole tribe put in the 
next day celebrating the event of me being found and 
restored to them without being hurt or frozen to death. 
Little Chig Wing told me if I had been eaten up by 
a bear or had been frozen to death she would have 
drowned herself as she never wanted to live any longer 
without me. Of course I felt very sorry for her, as 
she said those words very lovingly. 

By this time the weather had about settled down to 
a normal state and everything was going along nor- 
mally again. The snow had began to melt by this 
time quite a little and everything went along smoothly 
until spring. Then the snow melted and the grass 
began to look green and the birds' songs surely made 
it seem like life was worth living again. I and little 



53 



Chig Wing as usual roamed over the hills hunting 
bird nests and playing. Some of the warriors went on 
an expedition to some place, I did not know where, 
and when they returned they had lost several of their 
comrades. They said they ran across a lot of pale- 
faces who had "skookum" guns that never stopped 
shooting when they commenced and they said if they 
had not ran away from those palefaces, they would 
have all been killed. 

They talked a great deal about what "skookum" 
guns the palefaces had and thought if they only had 
guns as those palefaces had they would have got every 
one of them as their number was much larger than 
the palefaces. I think from their description of the 
bunch of palefaces that they came in contact with 
that they must have been miners who were prospecting 
for gold and of course they were well prepared to 
defend themselves and they never stopped shooting 
as long as they could get sight of an Indian. This 
put quite a damper on the Indians- They said the 
palefaces were "skookum" shooters and they did not 
want to come in contact with the palefaces any more, 
as they were afraid they would be killed next time. 

The ones that were not killed, but very badly 
wounded, layed around the wigwams for a long time 
and nursed their wounds and talked of the affair and 
wished they had stayed at home. One who had the 



54 



end of his nose shot off would go to the creek nearly 
every day to look at it. That was their looking glass 
to look into, as they could see themselves in the water. 
It took a long time for his nose to get well. He would 
twist it around and complain of how sore it was and 
wish that the paleface who shot him had his nose cut 
off clear up to his face. Some of the other Indians 
would guy him about losing his smelling apparatus. 
They all stayed close to camp for a long time; they 
seemed to be afraid to venture out too far from camp. 
They were naturally very cowardly and wanted every 
possible advantage and then showed but little mercy, 
if they got any advantage whatever. The Indian, as a 
rule, was a very superstitious creature. He always 
thought everything was against him, whether it was 
or not, and was naturally very hard to convince that 
he was wrong. 

Pat could usually convince them when they were 
wrong, but he had a hard struggle some times to even 
do that. It gave Pat a great string over the Indians. 
Pat tried to convince the Indians that the paleface 
nation did not want to do them any harm, but would 
like to teach them how to make a better living and live 
easier than to be roaming over the country all the time, 
doing nothing. That did not strike the Indians very 
favorably. They did not want to settle down to hard 
work. They would rather go hungry first. It just 
seemed as if there was no work in them. 



55 



CHAPTER VII 



At this time the Indians got the word in some way 
that the paleface nation was invading their territory 
and they were worked up to a very high pitch. Those 
that had a tussle with the prospectors and got the 
worst of it, did not want any more of it in theirs, so 
they said their guns were too "skookum" for them 
They were in favor of moving on so that the pale- 
faces could not find them, but the scare finally passed 
off about the palefaces coming on their hunting ground 
and everything took on its usual appearance, but some 
of them would still continue to scout the country to 
see if they could see any sign of the palefaces coming 
around. I think if they had seen a very large num- 
ber of the palefaces coming they would have ran them- 
selves to death as they had got so alarmed over the 
"skookum" guns that the palefaces had that they were 
quite sure that they would all be killed on sight. They 
finally gave up the idea that the palefaces were com- 
ing. 

56 



It was now getting time to begin to think of winter 
and their modes for supplies. They went to work and 
fixed up all their wigwams and teepees for the winter 
and made arrangements for a big hunting expedition 
to prepare winter rations, so they finally got every- 
thing ready for the hunt. Everybody was in great 
glee when the time came to start. 

"Whoo Big Indian kill heep deer and bear," was 
their pride in hollowing all along the line. Wild Dog 
and Crazy Bear seemed to be more still and sensible 
than the majority of the Indians. They always had 
something to say to me when they were going away. 
Wild Dog would pat me on the head and tell me when 
he was far away from me and laid down to sleep at 
night, he would think of me and wonder if I ever 
thought of him. I told him that I never went to bed 
but what I thought of him and wondered if he was 
well and happy and that I surely hoped he was. That 
seemed to please him wonderfully to think that I took 
so much interest in him. Of course it was very nat- 
ural of me to think lots of Wild Dog, as he was my 
main standby. He was always looking after my wel- 
fare and there was nothing too good for me to have, 
if it was in Wild Dog's power to get it for me. He 
never lost his interest in me in all the years I was with 
the Indians. He seemed to realize the fact that I was 
out of my latitude and among strange people and 



57 



needed the tenderest care of some one. He was the 
most patient Indian in the whole tribe. I think Crazy 
Bear was next to Wild Dog in that way. He seemed 
to have lots of patience also- 
Well, the Indians were gone a long time on their 
hunt, but when they came back they had a nice lot 
of fine meat — deer, elk, buffalo and bear. Bear meat 
was my choice and of course they always gave me the 
best. I don't know whether I ever got naughty or 
not in their eyes, but they always treated me like I 
was a little pet. Whatever I did was always all right 
in their eyes, or it always seemed to be at least. 

Pat went to work and put the meat up to dry and 
smoke, as he had the rock all built in their absence, 
and wood prepared for the purpose. After the meat 
was all hung and everything ready for the fire to be 
started, the Indians all patted Pat on the back and 
said to him, "Big skookum chief make big fire and 
cookum meats." 

The Indians all layed around and "wikirbaguird" 
that meat and rested up for another big "kiwankir." 
This was the way they expressed themselves when 
going on a hunting expedition. Bye and bye the time 
arrived to start on another hunting trip. They all 
seemed glad to go and that the time had arrived to 
start. They were gone a long time, but everything 
went along nice and smoothly while they were gone. 



58 



They finally returned with another fine lot of meat—- 
mostly buffalo — and they had all the hides. They 
made a fine lot of robes and used them for beding. 
They were nice and warm in the winter. 

Pat had the first lot of meat already dried, cooked 
and smoked, ready to put down for the winter, so they 
all went to work and put it down and hung up the 
new supply, to prepare it for keeping through the 
winter. Pat soon had it in a good way for drying 
and cooking, or rather half cooking, and smoking it 
nicely, but it made it kind of bitter — so much smoke. 

The Indians who had been gone on the long hunting 
tours had nothing much to do with anything around 
camp- The squaws had to carry all the wood and 
water and the men just laid around like lazy dogs, 
waiting to be fed. I could not see how there could 
have been anything like love mixed up in their affairs. 
They were so lazy it seemed like the squaws would 
hate them. The squaws seemed to be very industrious 
in some ways, but they were dirty and slouchy. They 
did not know what tidiness meant. The squaws went 
to work and dressed up all the robes that came off 
of the Buffalos they killed and had a nice lot of bed- 
ding for the winter, which was fast approaching, and 
it was well that they prepared a nice lot of new bed- 
ding for it proved to be an extreme cold winter and 
a long one. Also, that snow was very deep and it was 



59 



more or less stormy throughout the season. It got 
so cold and the snow was so deep that it brought the 
Indian men home, to go after wood, as the squaws 
could not get through the snow with it, so the men 
were forced to get the fuel, but it seemed to me that 
they would have rather froze than go after the wood. 
They surely were the laziest creatures that ever lived, 
but they were always ready to eat and plenty of it 
too. 

My, but when I look back on those days it makes 
me cringe to think of it. All of those long years were 
lost time to me, of course. It did not bother me so 
much as one who never went through such an ordeal 
would naturally suppose it would. I was very small 
when I was captured and naturally grew up with the 
idea that it was not so bad, as those who never exper- 
ienced anything of the kind would suffer. But it never 
got so that I did not think of my old home and the 
different things that I had in the old home, then with 
the Indians it was the same ordeal every day and 
week. The same things to eat all the time, and it was 
not like mother's table. Little Chig Wing and I would 
go to Pat's Wigwam very often to play with Pat's and 
W^aunagie's baby. It was very cute and got so it was 
glad to see us. Waunagie always seemed pleased to 
have us come after the baby got so it could walk- It 
would run after us and seem to have big times. Pat 



60 



got so he would monkey around with the Indian men 
quite a good deal. He had nothing else to content 
himself with. 

The other Irish fellow that was captured at the same 
time Pat was had never been like himself since he 
was captured. He never went out any more, but 
seemed sullen and morose to everything around him. 
It seemed at times that he had about lost his mind, 
and it is possible he had as he never took any pride in 
anything, did not seem to pay any attention to any- 
thing, and did not even talk to Pat to amount to any- 
thing. 

He went along until spring in a pevish condition 
and when spring came he moped around and finally 
got sick and lingered along for a long time. The medi- 
cine man seemed to do everything for him that he 
could, but nothing seemed to do him any good and 
he finally died and was buried, in the same manner 
as the Indians were, in a rough, rocky place, where 
there was an immense lot of rock rolled on the grave 
to keep the wild beasts from bothering the grave. The 
Indians seemed about the same as when one of their 
number would die. Pat did not seem to take much 
interest in the affair. I think the reason he did not 
was that he just considered that it was for the best, 
as he had been morose and sick nearly ever since he 
was captured and I think Pat thought he was as well 
off dead as alive. 



61 



I used to wonder in my own mind whatever would 
become of me and Pat. Of course I never expected 
to be looked after by my people, as I really had none 
that knew of my awful condition. I supposed my 
father was killed in that massacre when I was taken 
prisoner, as he was a very resolute man. When he 
went in to anything he went heart and body and F 
don't think but what he perished at the time and no 
one else knew of my fate to look after me, so I had 
to go it until fate would chance to change my posi- 
tion. 

The country kept settling up with the palefaces, 
driving the Indians farther north all the time and the 
Indians would run on to a train of supplies now and 
then. They could get lots of things to eat that thev 
never did get before and they got so they would go 
and hunt for trains of wagons of emigrants and 
freighters- On one occasion they brought a lot of 
tire crackers they had got out of an emigrant wagon 
which was taking them to a small place to have a 
Fourth of July excitement. They did not know what 
they were until Pat showed them how they were used. 
The Indians though that beat anything they ever run 
on to. Pat amused the Indians a great deal as long 
is the fire crackers lasted. They thought the pale- 
faces had some funny things. They talked lots about 

62 



those little things and what a skookum noise the> 
made. 

Things went along smoothly for a long time. 
Finally the white people began to settle in closer to 
the Indians all the time and the Indians would back 
out farther north, after having a few round-ups with 
the palefaces. A few of them would get killed as 
the palefaces had such "skookum" guns. They got 
so they hated to come in contact with the palefaces, 
as they always got the worst of it. Finally they 
moved away far north, many, many miles. They 
said the palefaces would never get so far as that, so 
they put up their camp and thought they would be 
safe at last. There they lived happily for a time, then 
the roving renegades began to put in their appearance 
There was a bunch of them located away northwest 
of where the Indians' camping grounds were located. 

Finally the Indians began to find out in some way 
that they were accused by the palefaces who were 
civilized, of committing lots of the crimes and mur- 
ders that those renegades were guilty of, and they held 
a great pow-wow to know how to proceed with those 
renegades. They called on Pat to express his idea 
on the subject. Pat at once grasped the idea that 
here was another chance to put himself in the lead 
of all future manoeuvers with the Indians- He well 
knew that the renegades were playing it on the In- 



63 



dians to make the settlers think all of the underhand 
work done, was by the Indians. Pat told them that 
the best thing that could be done was to kill every 
renegade in the country and treat the settlers with all 
due respect and things would go on different. 

They talked over the matter a considerable length 
and finally the old chief asked Pat if those renegades 
were as two-faced a people as to try to lay all their 
bad deeds on his people. Pat told the chief that they 
were hard customers and would do anything in the 
world to clear their own skirts, tell any kind of a lie, 
that they were a mean, low down outfit, driven away 
from the rest of the paleface nation because of their 
bad conduct and that they were not fit to live among 
civilized people. Pat told the chief also that those 
settlers were, as a usual thing, a very quiet inoffensive 
people and if they were treated right that they would 
be good friends to the Indians. Pat told the chief 
he knew both kinds of people and that the renegades 
were bad fellows wherever they were, and that the 
usual run of the paleface nation hated them as bad as 
they did a snake and had no use for them whatever. 
This speech of Pat's seemed to throw a great lot of 
life into the chief as well as the whole tribe. They 
pow-wowed a long time over the situation and finally 
concluded their meeting the next day and dispersed 
for the night. The next day you could see that the 



64 



whole tribe was awakened to Pat's speech. You could 
see them in several bunches discussing the matter. 
They all had a peculiar look on their countenances. 
Some of them believed what Pat had told them about 
the palefaces hating those renegades as bad as they 
did a snake, others would contend that it was impos- 
sible to hate their own people so bad as to run them 
away from their abode or to kill them. 

They all thought that Pat was about all of it and 
they finally agreed that he knew much better than 
they did how the palefaces done their business and 
when the time came for the pow-wow to commence 
they all gathered around a big mound and the old 
chief was the center of attraction. All eyes were on 
the chief to hear what conclusion the chief had come 
to. Well, the chief looked over all those who had 
gathered around and he had a very pleasant smile 
on his face, more so than I think he had ever wore 
before, in all my recollection. 

I wondered at such a change in him and I noticed 
all the Indians had noted a change in their chief's 
countenance. Each one would look at the other and 
seemed to be spell bound. I began to wonder what 
was coming as I had never noticed just such a pro- 
ceeding. I noticed that Pat was looking very funny 
compared with his usual looks- Pat did not know 
what to think, I guess, any better than did I myself. 



65 



Finally the chief called to order those who sur- 
rounded him and began his speech. He said in his 
awkward way of expressing himself : 

''Fellow tribesmen, I have weighed what our hon- 
orable white chief has told us." Now I had never 
heard the chief honor Pat with such a compliment 
before. The whole tribe looked at one another like 
they were spell-bound as they noticed the chief's 
change of heart towards Pat. He had never before 
showed anything like his present expression towards 
Pat. Then they went into details about what the 
great white chief had told them about the paleface. 

He said that he had weighed his words very care- 
fully and he was convinced that he had told the truth 
and after this they were to look to the great white 
chief to guard them in whatever controversy they had 
with the paleface nation. Then all the Indians looked 
at each other as if they had been shot at and missed. 
They all liked Pat so well they ran and patted him 
on the back and acted as if they wanted to hug him. 
I never saw such a change in all my Indian rounds. 

Finally things settled down and the chief said, "Now 
I want to arrange matters to dispose of those pale- 
face renegades," and they were all right in for going 
after them. They said if they had been laying all the 
blame on the Indians for what deprivations they had 
made themselves, it was time to put a stop to it, or 

66 



try to, at least. They all agreed that it was time to 
act. 

At this stage of the pow-wow the meeting broke 
up. The chief called to Pat to come up there; he 
wanted to speak with him and Pat went up to where 
the chief was and greeted him with a very warm 
welcome. The whole crowd seemed spell bound. 
They did not understand what the chief could want 
Pat to come to him at that time- They looked at 
each other like something awful was going to happen 
right away. Pat went to where the chief was and 
they had a few private words and Pat stood up and 
called the crowd to order and everything was so still 
that you could hear their hearts beat. I think they 
naturally beat very hard at this instance anyhow. 

When they all were still and quiet Pat began what 
he had to say. He commenced in a new way for Pat, 
as he never had put in such a talk before in all the 
speeches he had heretofore made to the Indians. He 
commenced in this way : 

"Fellow tribesmen, on tomorrow, at the time when 
the sun shows to be the middle of the day, I want to 
speak to all of you of our Great Father and what I 
know He wants to do for all of you, and what He 
will do for you if you will only let Him. Now remem- 
ber what I tell you and all be on hand. Now you 
are all dismissed." 



67 



I never in all the time I was with the Indians saw 
or heard such an uproar that went off at that time. 
The Indians surely were all wild with delight. They 
ran and patted Pat on the back. Such a yelping I 
never heard in all my life. Each one seemed to be 
crazy to get to Pat first. It was at least twenty min- 
utes before they recovered from the excitement. Pat 
was always looked on after that as a great white chief. 

The next day at the time designated them to be 
present, they were all on hand a full hour before the 
time appointed by Pat to hear him speak about what 
the Great Father wants to do for them. They were 
always very much interested about the Great Father. 
They seemed to get very fidgety before Pat began his 
speech. It seemed that they could hardly wait for 
him to commence- Finally Pat said in a loud, clear 
voice : 

"Are you all ready to hear about what I am going 
to tell you about our Great Father?" 

They all raised their hands and said, "Yes, chief, 
go ahead. We can't wait any longer." 

"Well," said Pat, "Our Great Father is calling you 
to come to Him. Our Great Father loves you and 
your children. He wants to give you fine skookum 
horses and cows and good homes to live in like He 
does his white children; with nice light wagons and 
buggies to ride in; have plenty of things to eat, and 



68 



have nice things to wear and have nice saddles to put 
on your horses when you want to go out horseback 
riding. And He wants to send your children to school, 
make them smart and intelligent. The Great Father 
loves you and your children as much as He loves his 
white children, but He don't think you treat Him right 
when you kill His loved white children. He thinks 
that you have never learned better yet, but hopes you 
will soon. Now this is wrong and you must quit such 
a practice. He calls on the Great Spirit every day to 
change your minds on this subject. He thinks that 
when this is done you will be as good as His white 
children, then He can love you all much better. Now 
the Great Father talks lots about you all being His 
children and how glad He will be when you all be- 
come good children. He wants to help you all if you 
will only let Him and be good yourselves. Now all 
of you think over this matter and see if you don't 
think it would be best to have the Great Father love 
you more and help you to live in a better way than 
roaming around all the time. Whenever you come to 
this conclusion the Great Father will love you as much 
as He does His white children and you will all be sur- 
prised how much better you will live and how much 
happier you will all be when you get to living in skoo- 
kum houses and have skookum horses, horses to drive 
to your light wagons and buggies, have everything to 



69 



eat like His white children eats, when you would live 
like His white children lives for a little while you 
would never come back to this kind of living for the 
whole world. I want you all to think over this matter 
that I have put before you today and see if you don't 
all think it would be best and have the Great Father 
love you more and treat you like He does His white 
children." 

At this stage the whole audience seemed to be spell 
bound. There was not a move in the whole tribe. 
They all seemed to be in a very deep study; Pat's 
words had brought quite a change to all of them- I 
could see that they all believed every word Pat had 
said to them. They all seemed to be more like mourn- 
ers at a big revival than anything else that I could com- 
pare them to. They all seemed well pleased and wore 
a jolly smile. 

When Pat dismissed the audience they all were very 
quiet and went home to their wigwams, just as quiet 
as they could as though they had been to a revival 
meeting. Sure enough they did not whoop and rant 
around like they usually did. The next day they were 
all very solemn and it seemed like a great change had 
taken place in the whole tribe. I am satisfied they all 
thought that Pat was just about next to the Great 
Father Himself. They would talk about what a great 
speech Pat had made and they were all in favor of 



70 



following Pat's advice. There were a few of the older 
ones of the tribe who were a little bit mulish and who 
did not seem to take to what Pat had said, like the 
majority of them did, but the most of them held out 
for Pat and told those who did not seem to take to 
all of Pat's speech, that they wanted to be sure that 
they knew he was all right and had spoken the truth 
in every sense of the word. 

Finally they all agreed that Pat was all right and 
that it must have been the Great Father who had sent 
him among them to enlighten them. After that every- 
thing went along differently. Wild Horse and his 
squaw would come to see Pat and Waunagie very 
often and ask Pat lots of questions about the Great 
Father. Pat would always answer their questions 
very promptly and it could be seen that they took a 
great interest in all that Pat told them. Wild Horse 
would say he thought it would be so nice to live like 
the Great Father's white children did, to have a nice 
skookum house to live in and big skookum horses to 
drive to a nice light wagon and have plenty of every- 
thing to eat and not be roaming around all the time. 
Wild Horse seemed to be a very sensible Indian and 
he thought Pat was just about it, I know, for he always 
acted as if he was wishing he was Pat himself. After 
that the Indians all took more pride in Pat than ever. 
You could see they all worshipped Pat at all times. 
Pat surely had all the Indians under his control- 



71 



CHAPTER VIII 



For a long time the Indians were very quiet and 
stayed in camp until the fall. It began to look like 
winter would soon be on hand and they all began to 
make preparations to go on a big hunting expedition 
to prepare meat for the winter and they all got ready 
and went out very peaceably and it seemed they were 
more anxious to go than I had ever noticed them be- 
fore. Their faces looked bright and they all looked 
bright and well and robust. They were gone a long 
time. 

Finally they got back and had a lot of buffalo meat 
and some bear meat, but very little deer meat. Pat 
had, as usual, got up a lot of wood to dry, to smoke 
it with and he went to work and hung it up and started 
the fire to dry it out, so it would keep nice. Those 
who went out hunting and brought the meat into camp 
did nothing but lay around and when Pat had the meat 
all going in fine shape, drying and smoking, they all 
got ready and went out on another expedition. They 

72 



were gone a long time, this time, and when they came 
back they had the nicest lot of deer and elk meat I 
ever saw. They were just loaded down. Pat had to 
increase his rock to make room for all of it, but he 
was fixed for the emergency and soon had it all on 
the rock to dry and smoke. They all said that Pat 
was skookum to hang up the meat and dry it so nicely 
to keep it good. Those who had brought in the meat 
seemed in good spirits and would talk about their great 
white chief, what a skookum man he was and how 
much they loved him and what a great man he was and 
they did not see how they had ever got along without 
him. They all seemed to think there was something 
better in store for them in the near future. 

Well winter began to show more appearance every 
day of being close at hand. They all fixed up their 
wigwams, preparing for the cold weather that showed 
to be close at hand. Wild Horse helped Pat fix his 
wigwam up very nicely and make it comfortable and 
warm. They had only just got their wigwams well 
shaped up when it suddenly came a change in the 
weather and turned very cold and very stormy- This 
was very unexpected so early in the season. All con- 
gratulated themselves on commencing to shape up their 
wigwams so early as they did. They all predicted a 
long, hard winter and began to figure whether they 
had enough meat to run them in case it was a long 



73 



hard winter and after a long spell of hard weather, 
the game fell off quite a good deal in flesh and the meat 
was not so good and tender, so they came to the con- 
clusion that they had better take another hunt right 
away, so they got ready and went on another hunting 
expedition and they were not gone very long that time 
and brought in a nice lot of deer and elk. 

Pat as usual had a lot of good wood piled up to dry 
and smoke the new arrival of meat and he went right 
to work and put it up in the rock and soon had it dry- 
ing. The weather cleared up and it was nice weather 
for a long time, but finally the weather changed and 
it was very cold, stormed fearfully and snowed a very 
deep snow and stayed very cold the rest of the winter. 
The snow got so deep it was impossible for the squaws 
to drag in the wood and the old bucks had to finally 
go in to it themselves. Crazy Bear was the laziest 
Indian I ever saw. He continued to compel his squaw 
to drag in the wood after the other bucks had gone 
to preparing the wood for their wigwams. I guess 
he finally got ashamed of himself and he finally went 
to getting the wood, by his squaw helping out some. 
The snow was very deep and it seemed nearly impos- 
sible for the squaws to get through the snow with a 
big armful of wood. 

This winter just spoken of happened to be uncom- 
mon, long and cold. It seemed as if it would never 



74 



let up snowing and it was bitter cold and the first time 
that ever the bucks made themselves useful in the way 
of helping the squaws get the fuel. It seemed they 
were just too lazy to eat enough if it had not been 
they had to keep life going. But they were always 
good and ready to eat and wanted plenty of it too. 

Pat always furnished his wigwam with plenty of 
wood and kept a good fire going and little Chig Wing 
would often go to Pat's wigwam and stay a long time 
because it was always nice and warm and we would 
have a big time with Pat's little boy. He was so cute 
and liked to play with us- It seemed like he was glad 
to see us come. I had at this time taught little Chig 
Wing and some of the other Indian kids how to play 
hide and seek. One of them would hunt us and we 
got Pat's little fellow to do the hunting, and he got 
so he did enjoy it ever so much and it seemed to tickle 
Waunagie a great deal to see him hunt us. She said 
he got so he would ask every day why didn't we come 
and live with them. She said he did not seem to care 
anything about the other Indian children, but he was 
always talking about us. Pat was always jolly and 
had lots to say to us. Pat talked with quite a brogue 
like he had not been very long from Ireland. Wau- 
nagie noticed the difference in our language and one 
day she asked Pat what made the difference in our 
speech. He went into details to explain as near as he 



75 



could what made the difference. But I don't think 
she understood it very well. We talked the Indian 
language most of the time so she could understand us, 
but I wanted to talk my own language some of the 
time so I would not forget it entirely. We would get 
it mixed up some times pretty bad, then Pat would 
invariably laugh at me and tell me that I was getting 
to be a pretty good little Indian. He asked me one 
day if I ever thought I would get back to my people. 
I told him I did not know about that but that I expected 
that I would not. I had been away from them so long 
I would not know how to act and I had nearly for- 
gotten how things used to be at home, as I was so 
small when I got with the Indians. I knew their ways 
and had got very well contented now and very seldom 
thought of my people and my old home. He asked 
me how they got me and when I told him I could not 
tell him so he could understand very much about it. 

I told him about where I came from to Iowa and 
it was at a big pond or lake where we were when 
the Indians came on to the place and killed all of the 
white people but me and took me with them and I 
told him that I had not been with them only a few 
days when he came in with them. He said "Poor little 
boy," and seemed to sympathize with me- 

Then I asked him what he was doing and where he 
was when they took him. He said that he and Jimmy 



76 



(that was the other Irish boy that died) was working 
with a mining company, hunting for gold and silver 
and that they were sent on an errand back to where 
they had camped, to get some tools that they had left 
at the camping place and before they got to where the 
camping place was, that they came in contact with the 
Indians and had nothing to protect themselves with 
and that they just had to give in and be taken prison- 
ers or probably be killed. Of course they hardly knew 
what to do as the Indians nearly always killed all of 
their captives. He said to Jimmy that the best thing 
they could do was to just try and act as though they 
were satisfied with them and Pat said they treated 
them very well, but it took them three or four days 
to get to the main tribal camp and that he and Jimmy 
was tied every night, so that it was impossible to get 
loose and they never slept any to speak of. 

I said to Pat that was the reason he looked so tough 
when they brought him into camp. 

"Yes," he said, "It nearly done both of us up, as 
we had been used to regular hours and plenty of 
sleep." 

I told him that I made up my mind as quick as I 
saw them come into camp that they had probably 
fought like tigers with the Indians, that made them 
look so tough. 

77 



"Be jabers/' he said, "It was not because I did not 
feel like it, that I did not knock the red devils down 
and pound the stuffins out of them, but I knew if I had 
done anything of the kind they would have toma- 
hawked us both and that would have been the last of 
Pat and Jimmy. So I held my temper and tried to 
make the best of it. My, but I was glad when we got 
to the main tribe, as I thought we maybe would get 
a little rest and sleep any how." 

I said to Pat, "Why didn't you run away from them 
during the day?" 

"Run nothing," he said. "They had us tied together 
and some of them went in front and some behind and 
some on each side, and it was impossible to give them 
the slip, and they chattered all day long until long in 
the night. I thought they never were going to sleep 
and we were tied so tight and in such a position that it 
was absolutely impossible to go to sleep. I began to 
think if that trip lasted much longer, we would surely 
die. We would nearly, in spite of our condition, go 
to sleep, walking along. That was the hardest time 
of my life, and of course we did not know what they 
were going to do with us- We just came to the con- 
clusion that that was their usual habit. We knew 
nothing of the Indian life or their ways and wt could 
not understand their signs. One day I said to them, 
I knew, however, that that they could not understand 



78 



what I said, that I wanted to go back, and I made 
signs pointing back the way we had come. They all 
said, 'Urn, urn,' which meant 'no,' I guess." 

At this expression I just laughed until water ran out 
of my eyes. Pat looked at me as if he wondered 
what tickled me so much. Well I was so tickled 
at the answer the Indians gave him when he asked 
them to go back and they all saying, "Urn, urn," re- 
minded me of the way they talked to me when I 
pointed the way back and asked them to take me there. 
The one I was with said "Urn, urn," which meant "no," 
of course, and when Pat told his story about "Urn, 
urn," it tickled me so I would have had to laugh if I 
had known that I would have been killed in a minute. 
It tickled me so that I think Pat got half disgusted, 
but he had not had my experience of course. He could 
not see anything funny about it. 

After that for a long time, when Pat would get in 
a big way with me, and want to see me laugh right 
hard, he would say "Urn, urn," to me, and of course 
I would laugh until the water run out of my eyes, and 
I could hardly quit laughing. My sides would be sore 
for a week. Pat said he would give anything in the 
world if he could be so tickled so that he would have 
to laugh like I did. He said he knew it was very 
funny or I could not laugh as I did. He said he could 
see streams running down my face. 



79 



CHAPTER IX 



Very naturally Waunagie asked Pat one day what 
he said to me that made me laugh so hard. He told 
her that it would take a long time to explain the story, 
but he gave her the idea and told her how all this 
laugh came about. She, of course, could see nothing 
funny about it, but when Pat told me about those In- 
dians telling him "Um, urn," I thought I would surely 
die. Could hardly get my breath, and to help matters 
out, Pat looked so funny at me that it doubled my 
tickle a hundred fold, as he had seen nothing un- 
common to laugh about. 

I asked Pat if Jimmy was always so dry and had 
nothing to say and seemed so morose. Pat said he 
was engaged to be married and his girl was coming 
over from Ireland in a short time and he was to meet 
her at a certain place, and Pat said it just broke his 
heart to think he was in such a condition ; that he could 
not meet her, and he never was the same old boy any 
more. I told Pat I used to wonder what made so much 



80 



difference in them. The Indians never seemed to have 
any use for Jimmy like they did Pat, but they never 
said anything about him not being lively like Pat was. 
But under those circumstances he had enough to 
break his heart as his poor girl would think he had 
played off on her and probably had married some other 
girl here in America and let her grieve over the past. 
It was enough to make the poor fellow morose and 
have nothing to say and finally die with grief. 

Well, the poor fellow was better off, as he surely 
was a pain to himself and all others around him. I 
was sorry that I had not known his awful condition 
before he died, for then I would have tried to encour- 
aged him in some way, but I was nothing but a little 
boy and, of course put in all my time with little Chig 
Wing and Pat together. Pat was lively and always 
seemed to think lots of me and, of course, Jimmy was 
so still and morose that I naturally did not like to be 
with him like I did Pat. 

Well, the winter began to show signs of breaking 
up. The snow began to melt and you may guess we 
were a happy bunch of Indians. It was much later 
than usual breaking up. We thought spring was never 
coming. After the snow began to melt, it would turn 
cold and it lingered along that way for a long time. 
Finally it broke loose and all went away nearly at once 
and it turned warm and nice and it was not long until 



81 



the grass was beginning to look green and the birds 
began to sing and every thing took on new life. 

Little Chig Wing and I, as usual, was out running 
up and down the beaches putting in pieces of bark to 
see them float down stream. We would get as wet 
as drowned rats. Some times the old chief and his 
squaw would give us quite a lecturing about it, but it 
done no good, for we would go right out the next day 
and do the same thing right over again, and take an- 
other lecturing, but that was all — they never spanked 
us or whipped us. It was not a rule among the In- 
dians to whip their young, or at least I never saw 
anything of the kind in all my rounds with the Indians. 
I never saw any of them strike their children. They 
would lecture them pretty strong sometimes but never 
strike or threaten them, and their children thought lots 
of their parents and the parents thought lots of their 
children. They got along so nicely. The Indian men- 
folks always got along with having very little con- 
troversy. Once in a while a little dispute arose among 
the warriors and they would invariably take the mat- 
ter to Pat to settle, and it seemed like it was always 
satisfactory, then you would never hear any more 
about it. It seemed like Pat's word among the Indians 
was law. Pat would always ask them several ques- 
tions ; I think as much as anything else, to have time 
to study the matter over to be sure he understood the 



82 



nature of the case and then he would always decide 
in a way that both sides were well satisfied. Then 
they would say to Pat, "Heap nice big white chief." 
That would tickle Pat very much to think they 
honored him so much. 

About this time there were quite a number of them 
who wanted to go on another raiding expedition. 
They did not say much about it, but got ready and 
went. Most of the main warriors left and were gone 
a long time. When they came back they had lots of 
trophies of one kind and another. They had run on 
a train of people who were going across the plains or 
going some where to settle in the new country. They 
got lots of nice calico and they got three or four whole 
cheese, and they seemed to like cheese awful well. 

They did not know what use to make of the calico, 
so they unrolled a roll of nearly red calico and cut it 
into three strips and tied it to their saddles and got 
on their horses and ran them. The calico was flop- 
ping and sailing through the air and such a time I 
never saw. The squaws were running and cheering 
for all they were worth. They sure had a big time 
in camp for a whole week. It brought a Fourth of 
July performance and it lasted for a week and it 
seemed to get funnier every day. On this occasion 
they got three or four saddles and they were very 
much elated over their saddles as they were so much 



83 



superior to their own make. They would look them 
all over and examine them to see just how they were 
made. The squaws had to get on them and have a 
ride to see how they rode. They were much pleased 
with the paleface saddles as they were so much nicer 
than their old tied up things. Some of them were 
very nice with lots of brass headed tacks and some 
of them had red hearts and diamonds in the leather. 
They just seemed to think that was awfully nice and 
they would put their fingers on those hearts and dia- 
monds of red leather and talk about what nice things 
the palefaces had and wondered how they could make 
them so nice. Every time any of them had to go any- 
where they had to put on one of those saddles. Some 
times they would have quite a squabble over who 
should have the new saddles instead of their old rattle- 
traps. They were so much easier riding than the old 
fashioned Indian saddles that they all wanted to ride 
the paleface saddles. 

Then came a long rainy spell and they stayed in 
pretty close. It got so wet and sloppy around the 
camping grounds they had to move their wigwams 
on higher ground. That was quite a job and it took 
them quite a while to get everything straightened out. 

About this time they got into a jamberee with some 
other tribe of Indians and they talked like they were 
very mad at those other Indians. They finally had a 



84 



regular quarrel and several on both sides were killed 
and wounded. It was nearly a year before they got 
things quited down among themselves, and after they 
got all straightened out they would have nothing to 
do with each other. I never could tell what brought 
on this trouble. They were very peculiar in their 
makeup and did not say much of their troubles at 
this time. They began to talk a good deal about the 
Great Father and got to the point where they won- 
dered if they could possibly have a big pow-wow with 
Him in some way. It seemed that they had been 
figuring a great deal about Him since Pat had given 
them such a speech about the Great White Father. 
I could see it was telling on them pretty strong. They 
would talk lots about the Great White Father and 
about what nice things He had, and if they would 
be good and let His white children alone and not kill 
them or disturb them in any way, that He would be 
good to them and give them skookum horses to drive 
to a nice little wagon and give them nice saddles to 
ride on and heap big skookum houses to live in, and 
plenty to eat and wear. They thought it would be 
so much nicer than the way they were living. My, 
but they were dirty and terribly filthy. It was a won- 
der they were not all sick from the filthiness, but they 
were rarely sick or ailing in anyway, but always ready 
to get out and go on all occasions. 



85 



Another singular thing with the Indian squaws was 
at the time of a birth they would always go away by 
themselves and stay all alone until the babe was born, 
and without attention from anyone, and when every- 
thing was all over and the babe was straightened out 
all right they would come into camp with it and noth- 
ing was said about it by anyone of them and every- 
thing went on as usual. I used to wonder if they 
got anything to eat all that time or if they did with- 
out until such a time as they could get back into camp. 
The babes always seemed to do well and the little 
things were always well. It seemed very seldom that 
they were sick or ailing in anyway. 

Another strange thing about the babies they hardly 
ever cried or were very little trouble in any way to 
their mothers, and they grew very fast. It would 
not be long until they were toddling around as lively 
as crickets. After they got to running around the 
mothers paid very little attention to them, not more 
than some dumb animal would. It seemed strange 
how they acted towards their young after they got so 
they could toddle around, but until they were able to 
toddle around they were very careful with them and 
tended to their wants very regular. I thought it very 
peculiar that the little fellows never cried to amount 
to anything. It was real funny when they first began 
to try to walk. The mother would always talk to 



86 



them and seem to have a jig with them, but very sel- 
dom kissed or hugged them like the white women do 
their little ones. 

The old bucks never paid any attention to the little 
ones, no more than if they had not been there at all. 
I thought that very strange and I thought they were 
the worst dumb animals to be in the form of human 
beings as anything I ever saw. 

At this time the Indians had got to be much differ- 
ent towards the white folks than they had ever shown 
to be before. I think Pat's speech to them had quite a 
bearing on them. They would very frequently talk 
about the Great White Father and wish they could 
see Him. They imagined He was something wonder- 
ful in the shape of man. They asked Pat if the 
Great White Father was a big skookum fellow or was 
He just like all the other palefaces. Pat told them 
He was just like the majority of the paleface race. 
They asked Pat if all of the paleface race liked the 
Great Father. Pat told them that they did invariably 
like Him, for He was so good to them that they could 
not help but like Him. They all thought they would 
likek the Great White Father and used to wonder 
if they would ever get to see Him. I think the chief 
had given the Indians orders not to kill any more of 
the palefaces that they came in contact with and not 
to bother them in any way, but to let them go their 



87 



way. The Indians had at this time taken on another 
change in their general make up. They never took 
anymore prisoners nor killed anymore palefaces that 
I heard of. They began to figure that if they could 
only get to see the Great White Father and have a 
pow-wow with Him they would change their way of 
living. 

They did not know that they would have to work 
for what they got. They had always thought that 
the Great White Father would give them everything 
they wanted without them making any effort what- 
ever. If they had thought they had to strain their 
muscles I think they would have thought the Great 
White Father was not what He was cracked up to be, 
as they were actually too lazy to work at anything, but 
they had got it into their heads that He would just 
give them all of those nice things without any effort 
on their part whatever. They went along in very fine 
spirits for a long time and everything seemed to be 
all right, so far as the Indians were concerned, until 
the white settlers got to settling in pretty close to 
the Indian hunting grounds and then the Indians be- 
gan to think they were getting too close, and began 
to talk of moving farther north, not because they dis- 
liked the white people, as much as they wanted to be 
by themselves. 



88 



They had by this time began to think the white 
people were not so bad as they had always thought 
they were, but they had their own ways and did not 
think that they would exactly like to be too close to 
them, so they began to talk of going farther west 
and north. Finally they got ready and moved away 
north and west of where they were at this time. Af- 
ter they were settled some of them made the complaint 
that it was a very foolish move, that they had as well 
stayed where they were as they contended the white 
settlers would finally come to them again. However 
some of them would contend that the white people 
would never get that far. 

Here they shaped their wigwams up in good style 
and took on new life. The place where they moved 
to was a very nice one to have their village. A nice 
little clear stream of water ran right close to their 
village and it had lots of fine fish in it. They would 
catch lots of them and dried a large quantity of them 
for the winter food and they were very nice eating 
after they were nicely dried and smoked. Some of 
the old bucks could eat a whole fish themselves, at 
a meal, and a good sized one at that. My but they 
would lay around and grunt, after they had eaten 
enough to founder a mule, and too lazy to think of 
stirring around to work it off, but just lay around like 
a lot of lazy fat hogs. This was a nice grassy place 



89 



and their ponies could get plenty of fine grass without 
going very far after it and they all got very fat and 
sleek. The Indians said it was the finest place that 
they had seen for a long time. 

Game was very plentiful and they could go right 
out in a short time and bring in a lot of fine meat. 
Plenty of bear, elk, deer and some antelope, but the 
antelope meat was not so good as tne other meat. It 
seemed to me to be a little bitter in taste. I never 
knew what made the difference, but none of the In- 
dians seemed to relish it like they did the other kinds. 
Buffalo meat was very nice but the bear meat was the 
best of all. It was always very fat, so I suppose that 
made the difference. It did not get so dry and hard 
and was always real oily and juicy. My but those 
old bear skins made fine beds to sleep on. They had 
fine fur and it was very long. 

While we were camped at this place some of the 
Indians caught a couple of young bears and brought 
them into camp and they were very funny creatures. 
They were not hard to make pets of and it was not 
long before they were very tame and easy to handle. 
We had some big times with them and they could 
eat a lot of meat too. Some of the Indians said they 
would soon eat as much as it took for the whole tribe. 
I thought to myself if they could only see themselves 
eat they would think the little bears were not in it. 



90 



They grew very fast and it was not long before they 
were great big bears. They would climb trees and 
cut all kinds of antics. They were kept tied up most 
of the time as the Indians were afraid they would 
stray away and get with some old bears and not come 
back. They got so they would play with each other 
and growl like anything. Little Chig Wing and I 
would watch them and enjoy ourselves quite a good 
deal, but we would never go very close to them — we 
were too afraid. We did not know what they might 
take a notion to do. The young bears would eat the 
fish cleanings up, as clean as if there was nothing 
thrown out. That was one good thing about them. 
There is nothing in the world that is a worse nuisance 
than where fish are cleaned. Those young bears just 
licked the ground perfectly clean. 

One day while they were cleaning the fish, little 
Chig Wing and I were watching the little bears lick 
up the filth when one of them got a bone in his throat. 
Such clawing and growling and pulling at his throat 
I never seen in all my life. Little Chig Wing was 
very badly frightened, as she did not know what was 
the cause of such a change in one bear. I finally 
told her that the bear had got a bone in his throat 
and it was hurting him pretty badly, but he would 
get it out bye and bye, but I guess it had a very good 
hold on his throat and seemed he could not get it out, 



91 



so we finally went and tried to help him, but, of course, 
there was nothing we could do. However, sometime 
during the day he must of gotten it out as he seemed 
to be all right that evening. 

Little Chig Wing told some of the Indians she was 
sure the little bear was going to die and after that 
they were very careful about leaving bones in the 
litter. The next day the little bear seemed to be all 
right and none the worse for having had such a time 
with the fishbone in his throat, but we noticed that 
after that when they went to eat the fish litter that 
they were more careful and seemed to remember what 
a time they had before. They seemed to have lots of 
sense and they generally used all they had too. Those 
young bears finally got to be great big bears. They 
looked very funny struting around with their shaggy 
coat of long fur. In the winter time the Indians 
fixed up a nice warm place for them to sleep and they 
were seemingly very well contented. But it took 
lots for them to eat. They had to prepare lots of 
grub for them besides what they had been used to 
preparing. One bear could eat as much as ten Indians, 
so it took lots of extra hash on their account. 



92 



CHAPTER X 



About this time the Indians discovered that there 
was a big renegade den not far north and west of 
them and they were a hard set sure. They would not 
care to come in contact with the Indians for they 
always came out victorious. They had the best of 
fire arms and were experts with their guns and pis- 
tols. Whenever they got a shot at an Indian he was 
sure a dead man, and the Indians found this out to 
their sorrow. They got so they would run for dear 
life at the sight of one of those renegades and they 
never went near them unless by accident. Once in a 
while they came in contact with some of them and 
nearly always some of the tribe were killed, as the 
renegades were sure extra good with their guns. 

Finally things got to such a pass that the Indians 
held a great pow-wow to see if they could not devise 
some plan to dispose of those horrid renegades, so 
they came to the conclusion that they would get all 
the Indian warriors into line and make a big raid on 

93 



the renegades den and kill the last one of them. So 
they got everything in readiness and on a certain day 
they were to make the raid on the renegades. They 
made big preparations for the raid and one morning 
they had everything in readiness and started for the 
den. Before the got to where the renegades were 
they spied three or four of them riding along and 
they gave chase and the renegades fired on them and 
killed three or four of the Indians and then made 
their escape to their den. However, the Indians had 
grit enough to follow them up to their den, but it was 
to their sorrow, as those whom they had come in 
contact with had got there first and they were all 
prepared to receive them and every time the crack 
of the renegades' guns were heard, three or four In- 
dians would be no more. They killed Indians as fast 
as they could count them fall. 

Finally the Indians saw that if they did not get out 
and go they would all be killed so they whirled around 
and ran for dear life and concluded they had all 
the renegade warfare that they ever wanted. The 
renegades killed about twenty-five of the Indians and 
never lost one of their men; so that put an end to 
the Indians talkikng about exterminating the rene- 
gades. They would talk lots about what skookum 
guns the renegades had. "Killem heap Indian; In- 
dian not killem any renegade at all." They were 



94 



very mute for a long time after that roundup with 
the renegades. I think they were actually afraid to 
go out, in fear that the renegades were watching them. 
They stayed in camp pretty close for a long time. I 
think the renegades had them so badly whipped that 
they would actually have ran and left their squaws if 
the renegades would have made a raid on their village. 
They were always talking about what skookum guns 
the renegades had. The Indians surely had all of 
it they wanted. 

It was real amusing when .the Indians had their 
pow-wow and was going out to clean out the whole 
bunch of the renegades and nearly got cleaned out of 
all of their best warriors and did not get one of the 
renegades. After the pow-wow, some of the big bucks 
would slap their hands across their breast and say, 
"Big Indian killem heap renegades," but the renegades 
killed lots of Indians before they were through with 
their raid on the renegades' den. 

I think that the round with the renegades settled 
the renegade question with the Indians. They were 
completely whipped and I think that so nettled the 
Indians that they concluded that all the palefaces 
were a bad set of beings. Such a roundup as the 
one just referred to kept the Indians stirred up a 
great deal longer than they would have been if those 
bad white men had never come in contact with the 



95 



Indians. The Indian wars would have never been 
prolonged half so long if those hard cases had all been 
exterminated before they even got among the Indians. 
It was nearly a year before the Indians got over the 
roundup with the renegades. They talked a great 
deal about it and said the renegades had all the ad- 
vantages over them. They were in their big log den 
and the Indians could not get to see them, but the 
renegades had holes to shoot through and it was im- 
possible to harm them, while they had to take the 
renegades bullets without any protection. The In- 
dians seemed beat and out of heart for a long time. 
They had enough to make them feel tough. They 
finally fixed up a plan to oust the renegades by mak- 
ing big torches and said they would go in the night 
and set fire to the renegades' log house and burn them 
all up. But later they gave up the idea. It so scared 
them to think about trying any more battles with the 
renegades as they had the Indians badly whipped and 
I think the Indians finally came to the conclusion that 
the farther they were away from the renegade out- 
fit the better off they were. 

When they went off on a hunting expedition they 
always went in some other direction besides towards 
where the renegade den was. They had all the round- 
ups they wanted with the renegades. In every case 



96 



they had always got the worst of it and seemed con- 
tented to let them alone. They finally concluded that 
what Pat had told them about the good palefaces 
running the renegades off from themselves was about 
right. The Indians began to lose confidence in their 
ability to accomplish very much with any of the pale- 
face nation and began to talk a great deal about the 
Great White Father, and wondering if they could 
not get to see Him in some way, and have a pow-wow 
with Him and get Him to give them some big skoo- 
kum houses to live in and big skookum horses to 
drive to some nice light wagon and plenty to eat. They 
all thought that would be so nice, especially those lazy 
old bucks. They had it pictured out that if they 
could make that kind of an arrangement with the 
Great White Father that they would not have to go 
on long hunting expeditions and dig for their living, 
but that the Great White Father would give them 
everything they needed and supply their wants in every 
way. They seemed to have very little ideas as to the 
requirements to make a living. It seemed to be the 
nature of an Indian to be just so lazy that he could 
hardly draw breath until it forced itself into him. 

It was really astonishing to see them lay around 
and their squaws running their legs off hunting wood 
to keep the fire going. It would seem the squaws 
would get so they would hate the looks of those lazy 



97 



bucks, but they were always very cheerful with them, 
like everything was all right. 

About this time Waunagie brought Pat another fine 
little son and when I found out about it and saw Pat, 
I laughed at him and asked what he was going to do, 
raise himself a little Indian tribe of his own. He 
looked at me so funny and said, "Urn, urn." Then 
I had to split my sides laughing again. He knew it 
would make me laugh very hard. The whole tribe 
had to come and see the baby and they would look 
at it like they never saw a baby before. They would 
take hold of its feet and look them all over and its 
hands the same way. My, but they would do the 
most chattering about it. I even heard that Waunagie 
even got tired of them coming to see her baby. It 
looked like they would never get through coming 
and going. The other little Pat was awfully proud 
of the baby. He told Waunagie she must not let 
them take the baby away or he would go and get it 
again. He just seemed to think the baby was the 
whole thing. He would cut all kinds of monkey shines 
around it and try hard to get it to talk to him. He 
would ask Waunagie why the baby could not talk to 
him. He told Waunagie that he talked when he was 
as little as the baby was. She would laugh at him and 
tell him she guessed he could not remember that far 
back. Pat and Waunagie seemed to be very proud 



98 



of the baby. Pat would have to take a look at it 
every time he would come in. Little Chig Wing and 
I put in a good deal of our time at Pat's wigwam and 
we were always very welcome visitors. After the 
baby got so it could set alone and began to coo some, 
we had big times playing with it and Waunagie would 
smile at us like she enjoyed seeing us playing with 
the baby. It was very light complected; taking more 
after Pat, as had the first son. It was a very bright 
baby and soon got to be very cute. Wild Horse and 
his squaw would come to Pat's wigwam very often 
and seemed to think there was nothing like that baby. 
Wild Horse and his squaw both seemed more like 
white people than any of the other Indians, but they 
all treated Pat with great respect. They always called 
Pat the great white chief. In fact he was very near 
their chief, as all of their controversies were taken to 
Pat for settlement and no heed was paid to the old 
Indian chief himself. I don't think the old chief cared 
very much though. It saved him lots of bother and 
he was getting very old and did not care very much 
about how things went, so he wasn't bothered very 
much. 

I think he knew that Pat knew more in a minute 
than he did in a month and was quick to act on any- 
thing that was brought before him. Pat sure had 
the Indians buffaloed pretty badly. They would put 



99 



in a good deal of their time asking Pat lots of ques- 
tions about the Great White Father. It seemed they 
had the Great White Father on the brain. I think 
they thought if they could only get on the good side 
of the Great White Father in some way they would 
be fixed for life. 

Pat would always answer their questions in some 
way to please them; it made no difference whether 
it was correct or not, they did not know any different 
anyhow. Pat could stand so many of their foolish 
questions. He surely was made of patience, but he 
seemed never to get out of fix about them asking him 
so many questions. 

I asked Pat one day if he did not ever run out of 
answers to those questions. He looked at me and said, 
"Urn, urn." His answer was so unexpected to me 
that I nearly split my sides laughing and I don't think 
I ever saw Pat laugh any heartier in all the time I 
knew him. I finally asked Pat what in the world 
had come over him that he laughed so hard, and he 
said it would make a dog laugh to see me so badly 
tickled. Well I said to Pat that when my funny got 
tickled that I couldn't stop it, and then he laughed 
heartier than ever. Pat said if he and I were not 
separated he was afraid we would laugh ourselves to 
death. He thought it would be a pleasant death, and 
I told him it would be to me, sure. 



100 



CHAPTER XI 



Pat and I had some pretty big times together. He 
said one day to me that he did not know what would 
have become of him if I had not been with the In- 
dians while he was with them. Pat was surely a 
bully old boy. I asked him if he thought he would 
always be with the Indians, and he said he did not 
know how he could do otherwise now that he had 
married one of them and that surely Waunagie would 
not want to leave her people, but Pat said he thought 
the time was not far off when the Indians would quit 
their sulking around and begin to live more like white 
people did. He said they were talking it very strong 
now, but a few of the old tomahawk warriors would 
not hear of it, but Pat said they would all be dead 
soon and then the other Indians would be nearly sure 
to change their ways and he longed for the time to 
come for the change as he was very tired now of 
Indian life. He said he never had any idea of be- 
ing with the Indians very long when he was captured, 
but he could never see any chance to escape with 



101 



safety, so he just stayed to save his scalp until time 
wore on and he got started in with Waunagie. He 
just naturally liked the girl and married her and now 
they had two nice little boys and he would have to 
stay with the Indians until such a time as they all 
gave up their Indian ways and settled down to live 
like white people did. He said the Indians began to 
think they would have to make a change as their hunt- 
ing grounds were getting less all the time and the 
time would soon come when they could not make a 
living like they used too, and he said they all could 
see that they had to make a change soon in some way 
and Pat did not think it would be many years until 
the Indians would all settle in a way like the white 
people were. He was working on them all the time 
to bring such a change about. I said to Pat, "You 
seem to have the strings on the Indians." And he 
said "Yes, and I mean to hold them, too." I said, 
"Good old boy, don't let them get the strings loose 
and hurry them up to make the change as soon as 
possible." Pat said, "You bet they will never get 
them loose again if I can help it, and I think I can 
help it, as I have the most of them so influenced in 
my ways that they will not be very likely to go back 
on me now, or at least I am not afraid of it." 

Well, at this time it was getting along in the Fall 
and the Indians all began to figure on fixing up their 



102 



wigwams for the winter, so they went to work and 
fixed all their wigwams up good and then went out 
on their annual hunt to prepare meat for the winter. 
They were gone a long time and brought in a small 
amount compared with what they had usually been 
bringing in on other Falls. They complained that the 
game was not half so plentiful as it used to be and 
they were going in another direction on their next 
hunt and see if they did not have better success, so 
they did not tarry very long until they went out again, 
and stayed a long time and came in with less than 
the first time. It looked like very small rations com- 
pared with other fall hunting. They complained that 
the deer and elk had so many of them gone, they did 
not know where, but they said they could not find 
them. So some of them concluded they would go 
after the buffalo. They thought sure they could get 
a good supply of buffalos and they hustled right out 
and were gone quite a while and got a nice lot of 
buffalo meat, so it made enough to run through the 
winter. All winter the Indians would discuss the 
shortage in the game and they seemed alarmed about 
their condition. In case the game got much shorter, 
they would suffer. 

It did begin to look a little dubious for them. The 
country was getting settled up so much that there 
was not half the range for the wild animals that there 



103 



used to be, and the white settlers had to kill lots of 
the game for their meat supply and consequently the 
game was getting shorter every year and the Indians 
became much alarmed for fear they would starve and 
they did not know any other way to get a living, only 
to hunt the wild game, and when that was gone they 
were up against it sure enough. 

They began to question Pat a good deal about the 
Great White Father and see if He wouldn't take them 
in like He did His white children and keep them. 
He could tell them that their game was nearly all 
gone and they could not get very much to eat any- 
more, that they would starve if He would not take 
them in. They rubbed it into Pat pretty hard and 
Pat was, in fact, as near stalled on that occasion as he 
ever was, I guess. It put him to studying how to 
answer them. He told them that the White Father 
had got very angry at them for killing so many of 
his white children that He was afraid that it would 
take a very hard effort to persuade Him to take them 
in now, but he would try and see what he could do. 
Of course Pat had no money to go on and there was 
no such thing among the Indian race at that time and 
Pat explained that it would take lots of money to 
go where the Great White Father was and he could 
not go without it. The Indians figured in a good 
many ways to see if they could not get Pat to go out 



104 



among the white settlers and see if he could not sell 
them a lot of their buffalo hides and robes and bear 
skins to raise enough money to go and see the White 
Father. 

Pat told the Indians that they were all poor folks 
and that he did not think it would do any good to 
go among them as he was pretty sure they had very 
little money among them, and what they did have they 
had to buy the necessities of life with and could not 
buy any luxuries. The Indians had, at this time, 
got the Great White Father on the brain and it was 
pretty hard to convince them that it was really im- 
possible to get to see Him, but they finally gave up 
the idea of getting Pat to go and see Him, so they 
went along as usual ; but they would talk a great deal 
about the Great White Father and wish He would 
come to see them and have a big pow-wow with them. 

But I learned the ways of the world and naturally 
took a great deal of interest in trying to learn to read 
and write. Some places where I stayed for a time 
the young folks would take quite an interest in show- 
ing me how to write, spell and read, and I finally got 
to one place where there were no children or young 
folks, but just a man and his wife. 

105 



They said if He would come and see them they 
would tell Him that they would not kill any more 
of his white children if He would take them into His 
care and give them big skookum houses to live in 
and big skookum horses to drive to nice little wagons 
and give them plenty to eat. Pat finally told the In- 
dians the best thing to do was to treat the Great White 
Father's white children nice and never molest them 
in any way and the White Father would finally send 
some of his head men into their camps and talk the 
matters over with them. So the Indians made it a 
point not to kill any more of the Great White Father's 
white children. Pat told them when any of them 
met up with any of the Great White Father's child- 
ren, to put their hands on their heart and motion to 
them to come to them and keep patting their hearts, 
and that would be the same thing as telling the white 
children that they were not going to hurt them. 

They done as Pat told them and there were no 
more of the white children mistreated by the Indians. 
The Indians went on in this way for a long time and 
the white folks got so they were not so much afraid 
of the Indians. I think some of the Indians got so 
they would go to the white folks' homes and hold out 
their hands as if they were begging something. Of 
course they could not understand what the Indians 
wanted and would give them something to eat. The 



106 



Indians always thought that was a great treat and 
would have lots to say about what good things the 
palefaces had to eat and they wanted to go often, but 
the old chief was a pretty wise old guy and he told 
them it would not do to overdo anything, as it would 
become disgusting to the white brothers after a time 
and they would not want to see them come around at 
all. 

This was a new feature in the old chief. It seemed 
that he was getting aroused to the idea that the white 
people wanted to treat his people nice, but he was 
afraid his people were going to overdo things, and 
it might cause a terrible combustion, and he thought 
he would curtail things before it went too far. He 
told his people not to go so often to the paleface 
houses to beg things as the paleface people would get 
very tired of so much of their begging of them; so 
they quit going so much to the white people's houses 
to beg and things went along very smoothly and the 
white people got so they would buy a pony now and 
then and give them corn or wheat or something in 
the way of bedding blankets or comforts and the 
Indians thought those blankets and comforts were 
so nice. The squaws would wear the blankets and 
comforts around them when they would go out. They 
thought they were dressed up very nice when they 
had one of those blankets wrapped around them. 



107 



They would look at them and examine them very 
carefully to see how they were made and talk about 
how pretty they were and wondered how the oale- 
faces made them. 

They said they could not make such nice things 
like the palefaces did, and they asked Pat how they 
made such nice things. Pat tried to explain to them 
all about it, but they could not understand much 
about it as they had always been used to skin wear- 
ing apparel with the hair on most of the time, espe- 
cially in the winter, but in the summer season they 
wore buckskin with the hair taken off. It was very 
peculiar to see all of them wearing buck skin gar- 
ments. They would get them very dirty before they 
would wear them out and after a long time the 
younger set got so they would not wear their buck 
skin garments after they got too dirty. They would 
make new ones and the older ones got more particu- 
lar about their dresses. The little shavers would 
get their wearing apparel very dirty in a short time 
and there was no such thing as washing buck skin. 
It would have to be redressed if they wet it. It 
seemed that the Indians were bordering on to civil- 
ization; they seemed to know that the palefaces lived 
much better than they did ; that they discussed the idea 
of takirg up the same way of living that their brother 
palefaces were living, but they were so lazy that to 



108 



go to work was a hard thing for them to conclude 
to do. They had been always raised to do nothing 
else but to roam around and flop down wherever they 
felt like it and get up and go again when necessity 
compelled them to. That would, of course, be hun- 
ger. They got pretty hungry very often, so much 
so that they would eat most anything that they could 
get. They were so lazy that they would rather go 
hungry than go out to hunt for some game. 

About this time they got in a big notion of going 
out and see if they could not find a train of movers 
or a train of freighters to capture a lot of something 
good to eat. They talked pretty strong of going and 
Pat got on to their ideas and told the old chief to put 
the veto on such a move as it would cause the Great 
Father to be very angry with them and it would hin- 
der the Great White Father from ever taking them 
into his family and enable them to live like His white 
children did. So the old chief put a veto on such an 
expedition and it all blowed over and they went out 
on a hunting expedition and were fairly successful 
in getting a pretty fair lot of game, but they would 
still go to the white settlers to get some things. It was 
so much easier to go to the white settlers and get 
stuff already to eat, than to go hunting for it. Of 
course the white settlers would give them stuff rather 
than to have their enmity; in fact the white settlers 



109 



were afraid to deny them as they believed the Indians 
would do them some harm which would be worse 
than giving them a small amount. 

When the Indians would return with their luggage 
that they had begged of the paleface settlers they 
would all get around it and look at it and chatter over 
it to beat the band. At one time they got a lot of 
salty bacon and of course they did not know how to 
cook it, only their old way of broiling it on the coals 
and they were not used to salted stuff and they made 
an awful face when they began to eat it. 

"Heap no good/' they would say. They asked Pat 
if he liked it and he said he did. He thought it was 
''heap fine." They wanted to know what the palefaces 
did to make it taste so funny, and they did not like 
the fat and greasy substance, but they thought the 
light bread was just fine. They talked a great deal 
about the bread and wondered how the palefaces 
made it. They were wondering if they could not 
make some like it. Pat told them that it took flour 
and yeast to make stuff like that and that they had 
to have a stove to cook it in, or a big iron oven with 
a cover on it. They did not know, of course, what 
that was and could not conceive the idea of what it 
meant. Little Chig Wing thought that the bread was 
just fine and she asked me if I liked it. I told her 
that I did; that I used to eat it at home and that 



110 



mother used to make bread like that all the time. 
She thougfit it was great stuff. They all ate it like it 
was the finest of smearcase. 

Little Chig Wing said to me that if she could get 
that kind of stuff to eat all the time she would enjoy 
it so much. She asked her mother if she could not 
make "stuff" like that. She called it "stuff" as she 
did not know what else to call it. It was real funny 
to hear her talk about that good stuff. Little Chig 
Wing and I got quite a bit of it and we did not have 
it spread with butter, sugar or honey to get us to eat 
it either. Little Chig Wing wanted them to go back 
and get some more when that was all gone. She told 
them to get lots of it too. The Indians got some 
crackers one time when they were on a begging expe- 
dition and the Indians thought they were fine too. 
They talked lots about what funny things the pale- 
faces had to eat. They all wished they had so many 
good things to eat like the palefaces had. They never 
got tired of talking about what the palefaces had to 
eat. They said they would like to live with the pale- 
faces to get so many good things to eat. 



Ill 



CHAPTER XII 



Finally some of the Indians were like some of the 
white people. When the palefaces got tired of their 
begging so much and sent them off, they would go 
and steal something. Finally the palefaces caught 
two of them and turned them over to the sheriff. 

The sheriff took them to the jail and kept them 
there about a week and then turned them loose to go 
back to the tribe. They made all kinds of motions, 
so those Indians said when they came back, but they 
could not understand what they meant. The Indians 
that the sheriff put into the jail said they put them 
into a skookum house so they could not get out, but 
they gave them lots of good things to eat. They would 
have thought very plain grub was very fine, compared 
with their own kind. They said the skookum house 
had very funny places in it to look out. They said 
it was like they would take their hands and cross 
their fingers and leave squares between their fingers 

to represent the windows in the skookum house. But 



112 



they did not want any more skookum house in theirs. 
They said they had to lay down on the hard board 
floor. They did not furnish them with buffalo robes 
and bear skins to sleep on like they were used to in 
their home camps. It put a quietus on the Indian 
stealing. They did not want to be put in the skookum 
house any more. The Indians that were put there 
would talk lots about it and said they could not get 
out at all until a great big paleface opened a door 
and let them out. They could not figure out how he 
could just come and open the door and they could 
not open it themselves. That was the biggest mystery 
to them, as they were not aware of the lock and key 
to the door. The Indians stayed pretty close in camp 
for a long time. They were afraid to go about the 
palefaces for fear they would be put into that skoo- 
kum house. The house had alarmed the ones who 
were in it once so they were very much afraid of it. 
They did not want any more skookum houses in theirs. 

I wondered lots of times if ever they dreampt about 
the skookum houses. Some of the other Indians 
would guy them about being put in the skookum house 
and they did not like it very well ; I know by the way 
they acted. They told those that guyed them that they 
wished they would catch them and put them in the 
house and keep them there as long as they had been 
in and it would not be so funny to them. They had 



113 



big times over the skookum house. I don't believe the 
Indians who were put in the house ever went on a 
stealing tour any more. I think they got enough of 
it the first time. The Indians got dissatisfied in some 
way after that and began to talk of moving away 
farther north. They talked lots of the palefaces put- 
ting them into the skookum house and they were afraid 
they might put them all in, so they finally got every- 
thing ready and tore up camp and moved away north- 
west of where they were at this time and they picked 
a very much nicer place to build their village on. 

There was a very nice stream of water running 
right close to where they put up their tepees and wig- 
wams. They went to work to put everything in good 
shape and it seemed that game was more plentiful 
there. They were highly elated over the prospects 
of game. There were plenty of deer, elk and quite 
a few bear and buffalo. Lots of wild horses, or rather 
ponies, some of the prettiest spotted ones I ever saw, 
were also in the neighborhood. The Indians lariated 
five or six of them after they had chased them until 
they could not run any more, but they were so wild 
they could hardly do a thing with them. 

They had a big time breaking them to ride. One 
of them bucked off one of the Indians and nearly 
killed him and he would not get on that pony any 
more. I told Pat one day he ought to try his skill 



114 



at riding one of those bucking wild horses, and Pat 
looked straight at me and said, "Um, um," and I 
nearly split my sides, I was so tickled at the way Pat 
looked when he made the reply. He knew I would 
laugh to kill when he said it. 

I asked Wild Dog why he did not try one of those 
nice spotted ponies and he said he did not want to 
die just yet, and he thought there was a good chance 
for it if he rode one of the wild things. 

Wild Dog and I went down to the stream and 
caught a lot of the nicest fish. We had a lot of them 
for supper. My, if we only could of had salt to put 
on them, they would have been fine eating. But I 
had got so I could do without it by this time, so I 
did not miss the salt so much. It was fine sport to 
go fishing in that little stream. Game seemed to be 
much more plentiful there. The Indians seemed 
highly elated that they had moved there. It seemed 
no trouble to get plenty to eat and they seemed well 
satisfied. They would go on their usual hunts and 
bring in plenty of meat and have all that they could 
use when winter would come on. They would always 
have a big supply of fine deer, elk and some buffalo 
and bear meat, to run them the winter, and usually 
some was left over. 

After a while the Indians discovered that there was 
a renegade den not far from where their camp was 



115 



located and they were almost frightened out of their 
wits. They talked lots about them and were very 
much afraid of them, as they had all the experience 
with them that they wanted. One day the renegade 
bunch run on a few Indians and gave the Indians a 
hard chase for their lives, but they did not succeed in 
killing any of the Indians, but they were nearly scared 
to death. They ran their poor ponies to the point 
of exhaustion in order to get away from the renegades 
and talked lots about what hard customers the rene- 
gades were. Some of them were for moving away 
from there on account of those renegades, but they 
did not move away. However, they stayed clear of 
the renegades as much as they could. They were 
certain it was sure death to come in contact with the 
renegade bunch, and the renegades found out they 
were afraid of them and tantilized them all the more. 

The Indians had good reasons for being afraid of 
the renegades as they were expert shots and they 
always shot to kill. They would get an Indian every 
now and then and that would excite the Indians to 
a high pitch, but they did not know what to do to avoid 
it. They got so they were all afraid of the renegades 
and tried to avoid them all they could. They wanted 
to know of Pat what made so much difference in the 
renegades and the other paleface people. Pat told 
them that they were so bad that the paleface people 



116 



would have nothing to do with them, and if they ever 
caught them they would put them into the skookum 
house and never let them out any more. The Indians 
said they wished they would get them if that was the 
case. 

For a long time the Indians and the renegades did 
not come in contact with each other. The Indians 
would go some other directions on their hunting expe- 
ditions and on their general rambles and the rene- 
gades had the Indians pretty well cowed. Some of 
the Indians wanted to make another move and get 
away from the renegades. Some of them said the 
renegades would follow them up, so it was no use to 
move away, but they would try and kill the whole 
bunch of them. The other part of the Indians said 
they were afraid they would all be killed before they 
could get the renegades killed; so things went a long 
time in a quiet way and the Indians tried very hard 
to avoid the renegades as much as they could. They 
said maybe the rest of the palefaces would get them 
and put them into the skookum house and they hoped 
they would so they would not bother them any more. 

It now seemed like getting along in the Fall. Of 
course we did not have any record of the time only 
by the year. So many snows, was the Indians way 
of keeping the number of years. But everything indi- 
cated it was getting along in the fall and the Indians 



117 



began to talk about going on their annual hunting 
expedition, so bye and bye they got ready and a lot 
of them went hunting and were gone quite a while 
and brought in a nice lot of deer and elk meat. Then 
they laid around for a few days while Pat put the 
meat into the racks to dry and smoke. Finally they 
got ready and went out again. On this trip they got 
nothing but buffalo meat, but they got a fine lot of 
it and brought it into camp. 

Pat, as usual, went to work and soon had it into the 
rack drying and smoking. The hunters laid around 
a while and finally they said they had no bear meat 
yet, so they had a notion to go on a general bear hunt 
and get some bear meat. It was so much better and 
did not get so dry and hard like the buffalo, elk and 
deer did, as it was much more juicy. So they all got 
ready and went on a bear hunt, and got quite a nice 
lot of meat. Of course Pat's usual custom was per- 
formed when they returned. Then they went to work 
and fixed up their wigwams and tepees for the winter. 

They all helped Wild Horse to fix Pat's wigwam 
while Pat was busy tending to the drying of the 
meat. After they got the wigwams all nicely fixed 
for the winter, there were some of them that got an 
icTea into their heads that they would gather a lot 
of dry grass and put under their bed to sleep on. 
Wild Dog was the first one to get this idea into his 



118 



head, and then they all did likewise. They thought 
that was a great improvement over just laying on the 
ground. I know that I noticed a big difference in the 
laying on the dry grass and on the hard ground. They 
talked lots about it and wondered why they had not 
thought of it long ago. They talked about how much 
better they slept and I thought they always slept long 
enough before, but they were sure good sleepers. 
Winter came on finally and then the dry grass under 
the beds was fine. It was lots warmer in bed then, 
than on the naked ground. 

One night it came a very hard wind and snow and 
it was very cold, but we slept very warm on the dry 
grass beds. After that they always made it a point 
in the Fall to pick a lot of dry grass and make their 
beds on it. I guess they never forgot that it paid 
them big for the trouble it was to pick the grass. 

This winter just referred to was a very hard and 
cold one. It lasted for a long time and we began to 
think spring was never coming, but after a long siege 
of snow and cold weather, it finally got to melting 
the snow away and it showed all kinds of spring 
weather. Finally the snow was all melted and gone 
and the birds began to sing and it was not long until 
the grass began to show a greenish look and that 
looked good to me after being housed up all winter 
in an old wigwam. 



119 



CHAPTER XIII 



As soon as the branches of the stream began to run, 
little Chig Wing and I was out wading in the water 
and putting pieces of bark into it to see it float down. 
That was great amusement for us. We would always, 
in every case, get as wet as a drowned rat; then the 
old chief and Chig Wing's mother would give us a 
good lecturing about getting so wet. 

After a while when the grass was very green and 
nice, we would go hunting for bird's nests and get a 
lot of eggs. We thought they were fine, and found 
nearly all colors. One time we found a large nest 
on the ground with eggs that were about the size of 
small hen eggs. We did not know what kind of a 
bird could lay such large eggs that were perfectly 
white. We took them home and roasted them and 
ate them and we like them very well. We often went 
hunting for some more but we never could find any 
more like they were. 

After a while the wild strawberries began to show 
a redish cast and then it was not long before they 



120 



were ripe and we would go every day to hunt straw- 
berries. We would pin big leaves together to pick 
some in to take to the chief and Chig Wing's mother. 
They were always very much pleased to get the straw- 
berries and little Chig Wing and I kept them pretty 
well picked close to camp. Some times we would get 
quite a ways from the camp, but the chief and Chig 
Wing's mother told us not to go as far away as the 
renegades might get us. That nearly scared us to 
death as we had never thought about the renegades 
being so near. 

We kept a close look out for them after that, but 
we never saw any of them, nor did we want to, as 
we had heard the Indians talk so much about them. 
We were as afraid of them as we would have been of 
a bear or some other wild beast. 

When the strawberries were all gone, we put in 
our time around the wigwam and sometimes we 
would go down and play in the sand. We would get 
as dirty as pigs, but we did not care for dirt no more 
than pigs did, I guess. We would roll in the sand 
just like the pigs would and have our ears full of 
sand and dirt. We never had any scraps like most 
of the kids do. We would always give in to one 
another without scrapping over it. The Indians were 
very funny in that way. They never quarrelled or 
had any rumpus among themselves. If they ever had 



121 



any disagreement they would take the matter to Pat 
for settlement and they were always satisfied with 
Pat's decision. That always ended all their troubles. 

About this time the Indians I was with got into 
a squabble with some other Indian tribe about their 
hunting on each other's hunting grounds. They were 
in a pickle about it. The other Indian tribe forbid 
them hunting on their hunting grounds, and those In- 
dians that I was with contended that they only hunted 
on their own grounds, so they had it up and down. 
Finally they commenced to have a little war over it. 
They had several clashes and the ones that I was with 
got the best of the war and the other side gave up 
that they were whipped and all was peace again, but 
several on both sides were killed and wounded. Some 
of the Indians that I was with finally died of their 
wounds. They would berate those other Indians to 
beat the band and I suppose the other tribe would 
berate our tribe probably as much as the ones I was 
with did them. I don't know how they settled the 
war, but the chiefs went to a certain place to com- 
promise their troubles and no other Indians went, 
but just the chiefs. So the chiefs settled all differ- 
ences and the war was over for that time. 

Things went along very quietly for a long time. 
They all layed around camp and got so lazy that it 
surely hurt them to draw a breath. Finally they 



122 



picked up courage to go out on a hunt and was gone 
quite a while on this trip. They brought in some nice 
meat. Among the meat was a very large bear — the 
biggest bear skin I ever saw. It was a dandy, sure, 
and I told them I wanted that one for my bed. They 
said "Urn, urn," and that renewed my laughing spell. 
It really tickled me until I though I never would get 
over my tickle. Pat came to see what was going on. 
He asked me what in the world could have tickled me 
so badly. I tried to tell Pat what it was, but I was 
so tickled that Pat finally asked the Indians what in 
the world had tickled me ; so they told Pat what had 
been said, and that was all they knew, and they did 
not see anything about that to tickle me to death. 

Pat just fairly shook the ground in a big hearty 
laugh and came very near being tickled as badly as 
I was myself. My sides were sore for a week after 
that. When the Indians found out what it was that 
tickled me so, for a long time every once in a while 
one of them would say to me, "Urn, urn." It finally 
got to be an old thing and I was not so easily tickled 
any more with the expression. 

Everything went along very smoothly for a long 
time. Chig Wing and I would go out chasing around 
to see what we could find. On one of our rambles 
we spied something very peculiar and we gave it chase 
and it proved to be a skunk. We got too close to it 



123 



and we smelt a little more than the skunk did, I think, 
and we did not know what to do to get rid of the 
awful smell. We hated to go back to camp with such 
a terrible stink and we were both nearly sick with 
such an odor. It seemed bad enough to kill a horse, 
but we finally came to the conclusion to go back to 
the camp and take the consequences, so we went to 
a nice sand bank and rolled around in the sand a while 
to see if we could get rid of at least some of the awful 
stink. But we were so completely drenched with the 
perfume that I do not think that there was anything 
in the world that could have extinguished the stink. 
Finally we gave up the idea of rolling in the sand to 
remove the odor and concluded to go home and face 
the music. So we started home and talked about it 
all the way and wondered what they would say to us. 

We talked about what we would tell them, so we 
fixed up what we would tell the chief and Chig Wing's 
mother. But it so happened that before we got to 
camp that there arose a breeze and it blew right 
direct the way we were going and the perfume was 
so strong on us, that it went ahead of us a long ways 
and got the Indians so badly excited that they did 
not notice that it was much worse when we arrived 
at camp. They were all running here and there trying 
to find the skunk. They were sure it was somewhere 
in the camp. They tore all the bedding up and carried 



124 



it out of the wigwams and thought sure they would 
find it stuck in some place letting out its perfume. 

Finally little Chig Wing and I went into where the 
old chief and her mother was, and the old chief ran 
out of the wigwam and cried out to some of the rest 
of the Indians to run there quick as "the skunk' is in 
our wigwam." The Indians all ran with clubs to kill 
the skunk. They all agreed with the chief that there 
was no doubt but what they had the skunk treed now. 
They asked the chief where he saw the skunk. The 
chief showed them where the skunk had ran when 
he saw it, so they went to tearing everything up in 
the wigwam to find the skunk. They went very cau- 
tious in moving things, and four or five of the Indians 
would stand with drawn clubs to kill the skunk if he 
should show himself. The chief was so badly excited 
over the skunk that I think he was positive that he 
saw it go under something. 

They finally gave up finding the skunk and all 
agreed that it had disappeared — all but his scent and 
that was very visible yet and would be for some time. 
I told Chig Wing not to let on, after I got straightened 
out, to the Indians, or they might discover it was us, 
instead of the real skunk. We had an awful time in 
getting everything straightened out that night. The 
camp was tore up enough to be on the move, except 
that the wigwams were not torn down. 



125 



CHAPTER XIV 



After a long time the Indians finally got their bed- 
ding straightened out and went to bed. After we had 
gone to bed I guess I got pretty well warmed up and 
the stink seemed to have taken a new hold. Finally 
the old chief rolled over and said, "Whist ! Whist ! 
That thing has come back sure. I can taste it." 

Little Chig Wing and I lay very still and we finally 
went to sleep as bad as the stink was. 

The next morning the chief was up very early. He 
said that he believed that the thing was in his wigwam 
some place yetl I thought I would ease him up a little 
and told him that the thing ran right by me last night 
and stopped and curled up at me and the chief said 
he knew then where the stink was coming from. He 
said when that thing stopped close to you it threw 
a lot of extract on both Chig Wing and I. "We will 
have to take your things/' he added, "and bury them 
in the ground to get the stink out of them. 

So we changed and went to the creek and washed 
ourselves and scrubbed with sand and then we smelt 



126 



like a second-hand skunk yet. Some of the Indians 
asked me if I had not turned into one of those stink- 
ing things. He said I smelt like one sure. 

Next day I went over to Pat's wigwam and as soon 
as I went in Pat noticed the stink and said, "Urn, um," 
and kind of turned up his nose and laughed. I nearly 
split my sides laughing at him, but little Chig Wing 
and I never let the secret get out about the skunk. If 
the old chief did see it in his wigwam it was because 
he smelt it so strong that he imagined that he saw it, 
and no doubt at all, for he showed them where it went 
and it wasn't within a quarter of a mile of his wig- 
wam. I think the old fellow's eyes were in an eclipse 
that time sure. The Indians all talked about that 
being the first time in all their lives that a skunk 
had ever bothered around their wigwams, and they 
all hoped it would be the last time. 

Little Chig Wing and I would laugh about it and 
talked of what a good joke it was on them, and we 
were the whole cause of the excitement. I told Chig 
Wing that I nearly died to laugh when the old chief 
told them where it went, and she said she was so 
tickled herself she would have laughed too, if she had 
dared. That surely was a funny thing to us for a 
long time. 

Well it was getting along in the fall by this time 
and the Indians began to think about going on their 



127 



annual hunting expedition, so they all got ready and 
started out to get some buffalo. 

They were gone a long time, but when they came 
in they had a big lot of buffalo meat. When they 
came back they asked if there had been any more 
excitement in the skunk line since they had been 
gone. Little Chig Wing and I just laughed until our 
sides were very sore. Pat, as usual, had a lot of 
wood up to dry and smoke the meat, and now had 
it all up in the racks to cure. They laid around for 
a time and then got ready to go on another hunt again. 

This time they went after deer and elk and got a 
nice lot of it, and brought it into camp. Pat, as usual, 
went to work and put it up into the racks and soon 
had it drying and smoking. Then they went on a 
bear hunt and got a nice lot of fine bear meat, and 
several nice bear skins. They made very nice cover- 
ings through the winter. The Indians had some way 
of taking the wild animal smell out of the hides. I 
don't know what they did to them to get rid of that 
unpleasant smell, but they got rid of it in some way. 

There was no unpleasant smell about the hides 
after they got through with them. They worked them 
over in some way so they were just as pliable as a 
comfort would be and a person could roll up in them 
like a sheet. 



128 



After this last hunt was over with they went to 
work and shaped up the wigwams for the winter and 
got them all in fine shape, before it got cold weather. 
Then the Indians were all happy. They had plenty 
to eat all winter, and the wigwams were all fixed up 
so they would be very comfortable, then they layed 
around and waited for winter to commence. 

However, on this occasion the weather stayed nice 
until very late, it seemed to me. Of course we had 
no way of telling what time of year it was, but finally 
it came a very cold rain and then turned very cold 
and froze pretty hard. After that the weather moder- 
ated and it came a very hard snow. Then the tug of 
war came for the squaws to drag the wood up through 
the snow to keep their old bucks from freezing to 
death. Crazy Bear and Wild Dog got so they would 
help their squaws drag the wood up when the snow 
was very deep, but Crazy Bear would grunt over it 
some times at a great rate. It was real funny to hear 
him grunt. He looked like a big lazy bear anyhow, 
but Crazy Bear was a first rate Indian. He always 
paid a great deal ot attention to me at all times. He 
was very sympathetic and had a pretty good heart in 
him. Little Chig Wing and I would stay in pretty 
close in the winter time, as it was pretty cold. My, 
but we always longed for spring to come, so we could 
chase around outside. We had no way of amusing 



129 



ourselves of course, in the dry wigwams, nothing to 
play with or to read, no pictures to look at, but the 
same dry old day after day. 

I told Chig Wing that we had all kinds of funny 
pictures to look at when I was home in Virginia and 
lots of funny things to read about. She did not under- 
stand what reading meant. Of course that was a 
blank to the poor thing. I made A, B, Cs, to show 
her how the reading matter was made, on a piece of 
slate rock I had smoothed off, so I could make lots 
of pictures on it. 

One day I made a picture of that skunk that we 
had such a time over, and she thought that was a 
great picture. She just laughed at it to beat anything. 
I made several other kinds of pictures which pleased 
her greatly. We passed the long winter days off in 
such ways as we could. We would go over to Pat's 
wigwam very often to see his little fellows that would 
always run to meet us and Waunagie would always 
greet us with a pleasant smile to show us we were 
very welcome. She was always very nice to us and 
seemed to try in every way to make it very pleasant 
for us. 

We would not be there very long until the oldest 
one would say to us, "Let's play hide." So we would 
play hide and seek for a long time. It tickled Wau- 



130 



nagie to see them hunt us and when they would find 
us they would be tickled nearly to death. They would 
just laugh at a great rate. We had some big times 
with Pat's little fellows. Pat always seemed to enjoy 
to have us come often. 

The winter went along very slowly and Chig Wing 
and I talked about spring never coming, but after a 
long time snow began to melt a little and our hearts 
leaped with joy as we knew that spring would soon 
be here again and we could ramble over the hills and 
plains and have a fine time. It gradually began to 
get warmer and the snow began to melt very fast. 

Finally it was all gone and the birds began to sing 
and everything seemed lovely and it began to look 
like living again. We could then go out and chase 
around all day over the hills and plains. In a short 
time the grass began to take on a green hue, and then 
we were happy as larks in the garden. We soon went 
strolling out in the hills to see what we could see and 
we discovered that the birds had begun to build their 
nests and everything seemed so lovely we would chase 
around all day. At night we would be so tired we 
would sleep like logs and in the morning we would be 
ready for another day to chase around in the woods. 
We put in all of our time hunting through the woods 
to see what we could find. One day we ran into a 
little spotted pony that had just found a little spotted 



131 



colt, and it was not able to get up yet. We were tic- 
kled to death at this little colt trying to get up and 
could not make it. We went back to camp and told 
our story about the colt and how nice it was and the 
Indians were all crazy to go and get it. So we went 
back with them and they gave chase to the mother 
of the colt and finally caught her. She was very weak 
and thin and they took the little colt and its mama 
into camp. The little colt was a great thing. We 
petted it lots and it straightened out and got on fine, 
but its mother was very foolish and never seemed 
to like to be petted, but was always very wild. The 
colt was very gentle and was the prettiest thing. The 
spots on it were so bright and pretty. 

We always claimed the little colt and Chig Wing 
said that when it got big she was going to ride it and 
I could ride my own horse. I agreed that we would 
have a fine time riding out on horse back. Chig Wing 
thought there was nothing like the little spotted colt. 
It grew very fast and soon was nearly as big as its 
mother. Its mother was always very wild and very 
foolish acting, but she was a wild animal and never 
was in captivity until the Indians caught her with a 
lariat. They broke her to ride but she was a regular 
bucking proposition and would always run like a deer 
until she was worn out. She was very pretty though 
and the spots on her were so bright and nice. The 



132 



little colt loked just like her and it would run and 
play very nicely. We played with it so much that it 
was gentle and we could rub it and pet it as much 
as we wanted to. It got so that whenever we would 
go close to where it was it would come up to us as 
if it wanted to be petted. We put in lots of time with 
the little fellow. 

After it got to be two years old the Indians put 
some of the Indian boys on it and it was soon broke 
to ride. Then Chig Wing began to get on it and ride, 
with some of the Indians leading it. They finally 
got it so that Chig Wing could ride it alone, without 
anyone leading it, and she and I went out riding often. 
The old chief and her mother looked after us as far 
as they could see us. I know they enjoyed seeing us 
go out riding as they would always come to meet us 
when we would return from our ride. They would 
pet the pony and talk to it just like it could under- 
stand them. They both seemed to think as much of 
the pony as little Chig Wing and I did. 

Chig Wing and I talked about the little Pony a good 
deal and often spoke about the time we found it. We 
would often refer to the time we got such a good 
joke on the rest of them with the skunk, and I told 
Chig Wing that it was just too funny when the old 
chief ran out of the wigwam and called to the rest 
to come right quick that the skunk was in their wig- 



133 



warn, and after they came with clubs to kill the skunk 
they could not find it. He had smelt it so strong that 
he actually believed that he had seen it sure, and 
showed them where it went, when all the time the 
skunk had not been within a quarter of a mile of the 
wigwam as we well knew. But I think it cheered the 
old chief up considerable when the other Indians told 
him he sure had the skunk treed in his wigwam, when 
it was little Chig Wing and me that was the skunk. 
The more we talked about it the funnier it got to us. 
The skunk deal was just too funny and was worth 
a thousand times to us what the pony was. We never 
forgot the ordeal and never revealed the secret to any 
of the Indians.. We often talked about it and won- 
dered why they did not catch on, but I told little 
Chig Wing that they were all too excited to have 
caught on to anything, and that I did not believe that 
an alligator coming into camp would have caused any 
more excitement than the skunk stink. I told Chig 
Wing that when the old chief showed the other In- 
dians where the skunk went, I came very near laugh- 
ing right out, because I knew that he had not seen the 
skunk at all. But I could not say so much about 
him smelling the skunk, and I don't doubt but that 
he nearly tasted it, for the perfume was so strong 
in the wigwam, that it seemed almost that it could 
have been cut into chunks, even with a dull knife. 



134 



We often wondered what the result would have 
been if they had caught on to the real facts of the 
case. But there was no danger of that. They were 
all too crazy excited to use any reason. I told Chig 
Wing that I wished that she could go back to Vir- 
ginia, where I was born, and we could have a nice 
time with the boys and girls that I used to play with 
before I left there. She asked me if they were like 
me, and I told her yes, that they were like me in every 
way. I asked her why she asked if they were like 
me, and she said they were a dandy bunch if they 
could think of as many things as I could to have a 
little fun. 

She said she would like awfully well to go back 
there with me and see every thing as she knew noth- 
ing of the palefaces' way of living. I told her that 
they had big boats run by steam and cars run by 
steam and it was awfully nice to ride on them, that 
they had nice cushion seats to set on. She wanted to 
know how fast they could run ; if they could run as 
fast as a horse, and how many legs they had. I told 
her that they did not have any legs, that the boats 
ran on the river, a big body of water, just like the 
pieces of bark that we put into the little branches 
and that ran with the current, but that they had big 
round wheels with a wind of a paddle on them that 
pushed the boat along in the water, and the cars had 



135 



a track to run on and could run faster than any horse. 
She thought that would beat anything she ever heard 
of. She said she would like to see some of those 
things. She talked a good deal about them and I 
told her I would make her a picture of them some- 
time on a piece of rock that I had smoothed off like 
a slate. She never got through asking me questions 
about the boat and the cars. I always had great 
patience with her and I always answered all of her 
questions and took great pains to explain everything 
so she could understand it. When we got back to 
camp she told her mother what I had told her and the 
old mother had a thousand and one questions to ask 
about those great things. 

I was tired when her mother got through asking 
questions about the boat and cars. Then Chig Wing 
wanted me to make a picture of the boat and cars 
so I went to work and made a picture of the cars 
and one of the big boats and they were more than 
delighted. They could not quit looking at the pic- 
tures. I told them that people rode in them when 
they were going a long ways and in a hurry. I told 
them that the cars could run a week without stopping 
only for a few minutes at a time, and that they never 
got tired. That they were run by steam and of course 
they did not know the meaning of steam. When the 

136 



rest of the tribe heard about those great things it 
excited them more than the drawings of the turkey, 
zebra and buffalo in the mud. 

They seemed to be terribly excited over those pic- 
tures and asked ten thousand questions about those 
new things. They would look at me just like they 
had never seen me before, in a deep study. I think 
they just began to wonder what would come next from 
me. They had been so badly surprised before that 
they hardly knew themselves, and this great new fea- 
ture was baffling them more. They all looked at 
those pictures until they nearly wore them out han- 
dling the piece of slate rock they were drawn on. I 
think they wondered about those things, until they 
wore their wondering facilities out or nearly so. 

Little Chig Wing and I got tired of the ordeal and 
went out horsebabck riding again, and were gone 
nearly all day. When we came back the Indians had 
killed some nice birds and had them roasted for us, 
and we were good and hungry and they were fine 
eating. The chief and Chig Wing's mother told us 
we must not go too far away from the camp, for the 
renegades might get us, and then they would not 
have us any more to keep them company. We were 
a little bit shy for a time about going so far off, but 
it soon got old and we would go a long distance on 
some days. 



137 



Once in a while Wild Dog would want me to go 
with him on a chase somewhere and I would always 
go with him. He was a bully old Indian and had 
always taken a great interest in me. I liked Wild 
Dog very much. Wild Dog and I were out one day 
and we ran into a couple of little deers. They were 
very young ones and could not run like the older ones. 
I asked Wild Dog to catch one of them for me so 
I could make a pet of it. He said it would take some- 
thing faster than we had to outrun them and I was 
satisfied. He told the truth for they could run like 
the wind. They were nice looking little fellows, 
all spotted. I asked him what made them spotted, 
and he said all deer were like that when they were 
young. 

Wild Dog and I finally went back to camp and told 
little Chig Wing about the little deer we had seen. 
She said she wished she had been with me that day 
as she would liked to have seen them. She asked me 
if I would not go with her some day and see if we 
could not see a little deer. I told her it was a long 
ways and we might go a dozen times and never run 
into them. But she begged me so hard that I told her 
that we would go some day and see if we could not 
find them. So we started one day very early and 
rode until we were worn out trying to find those little 
deers, but we never saw them. 



138 



CHAPTER XV 



I felt sorry for little Chig Wing; she wanted to 
see them so bad. She asked me all about the little 
deer; if they were pretty, and I told her they were 
awfully nice and she said she would almost give her 
pony to see them. I told her maybe we would run 
across some when we were chasing around sometime. 
She said, "Wouldn't it be nice if we would run into 
some on one of our rambles in the woods." But we 
never did, and we went lots of different ways on our 
rides. 

I told her it would do me more good than anything 
else to get into another skunk predicament, than any- 
thing else I could think of now. I told her that was 
the funniest thing that had ever happened, the way 
it turned out. She said it must of been funny to me. 

"Yes," I told her, "it was so funny about the chief 
showing them where the skunk had gone, when he 
had never seen it, but he had to say something after 
he had told them to run; that there was a skunk in 



139 



his wigwam, and they all agreed with him that he had 
the skunk treed sure, when all they smelt was us." 

She laughed very hard and said she never had 
looked at it in that light until I had told her. She 
wanted to know how I had figured all those things out 
so nicely. I told her there was no figuring about it — 
it was just as things had happened, to be so funny. 
She said it was a good joke on them. I told her a 
joke was putting it very mild. 

Little Chig Wing and I had some big times together. 
She had got my ways more and more all the time. 
We went up to see Pat and Waunagie the next day 
and they, as usual, were very glad to see us, and the 
two little boys were more than glad to see us. It 
had been a long time since we were there. They ran 
and skipped about like crickets. We stayed all day 
with them and they went a piece with us and wanted 
us to come back again and not stay away so long any- 
more. They said they thought that we were never 
coming back anymore ; it had been so long since we 
were there. 

The little fellows had right curly hair, which made 
them look very cute. Waunagie took a great pride 
in her children. She took more pains with them than 
the rest of the Indians did with their young. 

Little Chig Wing and I went back to the wigwam 
and monkeyed around and I got the slate rock out 



140 



and made her some A, B, C, letters and explained 
to her what they were and told her we learned to make 
them at school. She did not understand what school 
was and I had to explain to her what it was. 

She said she would like to go to such a place and 
learn to make things like I could. 

About this time the renegades were getting pretty 
bad again and the Indians were getting pretty badly 
worked up about them. The renegades got so they 
would hunt for the Indians, and if they ever caught 
an Indian out it was good-bye Indian, for they were 
sure shots and they also desired to rid the country 
of the Indians. Whenever they got into a skirmish 
with the Indians they always got the best of them. 
It seemed like the Indians could not kill any of the 
renegades, but the renegades would always get quite 
a number of the Indians. They skirmished along for 
a time and finally the Indians said it was no use to 
try to do anything with the renegades for they would 
kill the whole tribe yet if they monkeyed with them 
much more. So they stayed away from the renegades 
entirely and tried to forget the renegades altogether. 

About this time Wild Dog went out riding pretty 
often and one day he asked me if I did not want to 
go with him. He said maybe he would see some 
more little deer, so I told him I would like to go the 
best kind. We started very early in the morning, 



141 



and, of course, we had a long day before us and went 
much farther than we had ever gone before. Acci- 
dentally we ran onto about 20 of those renegades. 
Of course they could see that I was a white boy and 
they gave us a chase. My horse could outrun Wild 
Dog's, but they finally killed Wild Dog and soon 
caught me and took me prisoner, much to my sorrow, 
as I considered this worse than being captured by 
the Indians, and will be explained in after pages. 

They took me to their dismal den and there I was 
captive for quite a while. One of them always stayed 
at the den with me while the rest of them went out 
and stole horses. They were the limit of anything I 
ever met up with, and I had to do all the chores and 
washing, carrying water, running after their horses, 
saddling them up and unsaddling them. When they 
came back they often brought me little things that they 
thought would please me, but I was so thoroughly 
disgusted with them tthat nothing looked good to me. 

After the meal would be over they would call on 
me to fill their pipes, light them, carry them a drink 
of water and all such things. They had a lot of 
horses on hand. They would go to the nearest set- 
tlement and steal the best horses they could find and 
take them to some other new settlement in a remote 
part of the country where there were new comers 
wanting to buy horses and there they would get cash 
for them.. 



142 



They kept my horse and got so they would let me 
go out with them a little to round the horses up, and 
after a long time, I got to go after the mail. One of 
them went with me once or twice so that I would 
know the road pretty well, then I got so they trusted 
me to go alone, and it was a long ways. Of course 
I did not know anything about the number of miles 
it was, but it took me from daylight until way after 
dark to make the trip and my horse was an extra good 
traveler. I am satisfied that we went not less than 
thirty-five miles. That would make a seventy mile 
trip in a day and we just went on a hustle all the 
time and did not tarry at the post office long either. 

In the summer season it was not so bad, but when 
winter came on it was a fright. The first winter I 
did not have to go only once in a while. After a time 
they got so they treated me very well. They did not 
try to make such a slave of me, but their natural 
makeup did not strike me very favorable. They were 
very rough spoken, told all kinds of hard yarns of 
what they had done and what they expected to do. 
I got awfully tired of their conversation. Nearly 
every word was an oath. The only thing about them 
that was good was that they lived right up to the top 
of everything money could buy in the way of eats. 

We did have good food, but after that was said, 
I would much rather have been back with the Indians. 



143 



But poor Wild Dog was dead — my best protector and 
the best friend I had among the Indians. Little Chig 
Wing was a great friend of mine and I often won- 
dered what she would say and think when I never 
came back. Wild Dog never went back either. I 
imagined they took many a hunt for us and possibly 
might have found Wild Dog's dead body. That would 
have partly explained matters. The Indians would 
naturally suspect that we had come in contact with 
some white men and that they had killed Wild Dog 
and took me with them, but if they never found Wild 
Dog's body I can have no idea of what conclusion 
they came to in regard to whatever became of us. 
I often wondered what little Chig Wing thinks about 
me. She was always with me chasing around and 
I wondered if she drowned herself as she said she 
would if I had been frozen to death the time I was 
lost in the snow storm. 

Of course I often think of the merry chases we had 
and when we would return her mother would pat us 
so nicely. She seemed to be an entirely different crea- 
ture to most of the Indian squaws. The majority of 
them were cold and careless towards their children, 
but Chig Wing's mother always had a warm recep- 
tion for us when we would come in. 



144 



CHAPTER XVI 



Those renegades, or horse thieves, were a hard 
set of customers, but I never seen one of them drunk 
all the time I was with them. They had plenty of 
whiskey all the time, but they took very sparingly of 
it and never allowed themselves to become intoxicated. 
I was very much surprised at them taking such a 
stand as that as they were very rough and did not 
seem to care for anything. That showed good rea- 
soning or training. 

Bye and bye they went out on a raid of horse steal- 
ing and were gone two or three weeks. They got 
into a jack-pot somewhere and three of them got 
killed. That put quite a quietus on the rest of them 
and they stayed close to camp for a long time. It 
seemed to cut them pretty strong. As well as I could 
understand the ones who got killed were the head 
ones of the band and the most brainy of the bunch. 
Of course when the head of any kind of an organi- 
zation gets killed or dies, it always puts a damper on 

145 



the rest. In this case it sure took the vim out of the 
rest. They did not seem to know what to do or how 
to act. They roamed around for a long time and 
seemed dazed. They were lots better to me than usual. 

About this time I was thinking about trying to make 
an escape from them, as I had got very tired of such 
a life. I did not know what to do — whether to try 
and make my way back to the Indians or try to go 
to the people of my own kind. Of course I studied 
the matter over in many ways. I had but little idea 
of the ways of my own people,being so small when 
I was taken away, but of course it was my nature to 
want to be with my own people again, as I had, by 
this time, got to be quite a good sized lad. 

So I concluded to make a break when the weather 
got warm and nice, so I would not freeze if I was 
compelled to lay out nights. So when the weather 
got nice and warm I planned to make my escape by 
keeping right on the next time they sent me after the 
mail and never returning. 

So one nice morning I got ready to start, and as 
they were out of smoking tobacco they gave me some 
money to get some. I thought if they could only 
read my mind, they would not let me go after the 
mail this time. But they did not know my plans so I 
started in great glee after the mail, as I thought, never 
to return. 



146 



But alas ! I did return to my sorrow. I went 
through the little berg — Idon't remember the name 
of it, and hustled on as fast as my horse could stand 
to travel, until night overtook me. I came to a very 
respectable house on a ranch, and I asked the man 
of the place if I could stay all night with him. He 
said in a nice, pleasant tone, "You certainly can, my 
little man." 

Now came the tug of war to explain who I was 
and where I was going and where I came from. A 
thousand and one questions was the order of the day 
and as I had not studied anything to tell, and being 
a green kid, I told the straight story of my ups and 
downs. 

My night's rest was very uncomfortable. The man 
of the house was a very resolute looking man and 
he had supicions of me at the first sight, and after 
questioning me somewhat, concluded I was not just 
right in some ways. I am quite sure that he went out 
to some of his neighbors and told them that he took 
me to be a little horse thief, and I found out that it 
was death for anything of that kind. They talked 
in low tones all night. I could not understand any- 
thing that was said with the exception of hearing one 
of them say, "We will make the little fellow talk 
up in the morning.' ' 

147 



Honest, this was another jolt for me. I discovered 
that I was going to be captured again and that this 
would be the third time. I thought to myself, "What 
in the world is coming next?" 

So after hours of turmoil it got daylight and a 
very husky voice came in to ask me if I was not ready 
to get up. I said, "Yes, I am, as I have not been able 
to sleep at all." 

"Very well, you will probably be able to sleep better 
bye and bye." 

After their all night talk and his general manner, 
I did not know what was coming. Next I got up 
and dressed. When I went out they had breakfast 
ready, and it was the first meal that I had eaten at 
a regular table for several years. Of course I did 
not relish it like I would if I had not been scared 
to death as I did not know what they were going to 
do with me.. After the breakfast was over they took 
me out in the yard and began questioning me, until 
I did not know myself. 

Some of them got very badly excited after I had 
told them a straight forward story. Of course I did 
not know anything else to tell them. They wanted 
to know where I was making for and I told them I 
had no plans in view, only to get away from those 
renegades and horsethieves. 

148 



This speech seemed to put a different look on most 
of their faces, except the one surly looking fellow, 
who said in a loud, harsh tone, "He has got his little 
piece down pretty pat." 

Another one of the crowd spoke up at this stage of 
the matter and said he believed the little man was all 
right, and he should not be abused until they knew 
all about the affair. He asked me if I was willing to 
go back with them and show them wheere the camp 
of the renegades and horsethieves could be found. I 
told them that they would kill all of us before we 
could turn around, as they were extra good shots and 
never missed at what they aimed. 

The same gruff party spoke up and said, "I told 
you he had his speech down pretty pat. He is trying 
to screen his pals. You can see without going any 
farther what he needs and ought to have." 

The party who had spoken before in my favor spoke 
up to this husky fellow and told him he had said 
enough and just to hold his own and say no more, so 
they all talked the matter over and finally asked me 
if I was willing to go with them close enough to show 
them the exact location of the place where the rene- 
gades stayed. I told them I would if they would 
leave me behind with someone to protect me. They 
all said in unity, "You bet we will, little man," and 
slapped me on the back. 



149 



So they went to work and gathered up one hundred 
men and all had good horses and good guns, and on 
the next morning they started for the renegades' den 
with me in the lead. They camped for the night with- 
in about four or five miles of the renegades' den and 
took an early start the next morning. 

When we got within about a mile of the den, I told 
them that it was not over a mile and I did not want 
to go any farther. 

"All right, my little lad," said the fellow who had 
been on my side all the time." So I asked them if 
they took the renegades prisoners to send a party to 
tell us so we could go on back for they would kill 
me on sight for giving them away. They said, "Never 
mind, little man, you will not be hurt," and away they 
went. 

I had given them instructions how to proceed, so 
as not to excite the renegades until they had them 
cornered. They surely took them by surprise. They 
were unaware of those parties coming up until they 
were all surrounded and surrendered without a gun 
shot. They made them saddle up their horses and 
jailed the whole bunch and I want to tell you that 
there was nothing too good for me after that. The 
party who had been so hard on me, came to me and 
acknowledged that he had made an ass of himself 
and begged my pardon. He claimed h ehad learned 



150 



a great lesson of a poor little orphan boy and he was 
actually ashamed of himself and always tried to make 
amends for his ugliness at that time. I stayed around 
there for quite a while and was very well treated by 
all the people. 

I never knew what became of the renegades that 
went to jail, but I always supposed from the general 
run of things that some of them "looked up a tree," 
as they called it in that country. 

I finally got dissatisfied at that place and drifted 
around from one place to another. I got disgusted 
with the people to whom I told my story. They were 
always some smart alec among them to make sport 
of the "Indian boy," as they called me, and I finally 
came to the conclusion to reveal my identity as a 
prisoner of the Indians, so I did not say anything 
about it when I made my next move. 

But you will want to know how I explained to the 
people where I came from. I claimed to have ran 
away from home to make my own way in the world 
and I never expected to tell a true story again. But 
now I think it a good idea to write a book on my life 
and let the world know what some of its people in 
the early days of the States had to contend with. 

After reading it through the people will only have 
a small idea of the trials and tribulations that the 
people had to go through with. I used to think I 

151 



would try and find my people and then I did not know 
where to start in with, and I came to the conclusion 
that it was too big a job and of course I never had 
an education and my thinking qualities had never 
developed very much. 

But from that time on I never divulged my secret. 
No one with whom I came in contact with were ever 
the wiser of my pitiful condition. Of course my time 
was spent in roaming around from one place to an- 
other, working here and there by the day at small 
wages, with no one to guide me and no one to take 
any interest in me or my welfare. 

He was a noble fellow and his wife was a good, 
grand lady, in every sense of the word. He was next 
to a father to me and his dear wife was surely a dear 
mother to me. She was never too tired to see that I 
was fixed just right for the night, so I could rest well. 
In the winter time she would come into my room and 
fix the covers around me very snugly before she went 
to bed, then she would pat me on the head, just as if 
I had been her own boy. My, but she was a lovable 
woman. She always wanted to know what I wanted 
to eat. It seemed to please her to find out just what 
suited my taste. 

I used to wonder how she could take so much in- 
terest in me,, never to have known me before. But 
she was so good to me that I tried every way possi- 



152 



ble to please her, and he was just like her in every- 
way — just as good to me as if he had been my own 
father. This was a very nice neighborhood. All the 
people seemed to be nice and kind and appeared to 
take a great deal of interest in me and cheer me up 
on all occasions. I was noticed as one of the neigh- 
bor's boys, and everyone had a cheery word for me 
and patted me on the head and always wanted me 
to come and see their boys. I often accepted their 
invitation and was treated royal at all times, and when 
I would return home Mrs. McKieffy would always 
run to meet me and say in a jolly way, "Here comes 
my boy home again. Did you have a good time to- 
day?" And then she would tell me how glad she was 
that I had a good time. It always seemed she was 
afraid that something would go wrong with me when 
I was away from her. She could not have thought 
more of her own son than she did of me. 

She questioned me at considerable length, lots of 
times, to see if she could find out something about 
my people, but of course, I could not tell her anything 
about them as it would have opened the way to com- 
mence answering a thousand and one questions again. 
I thought often that I would tell Mrs. McKieffy my 
troubles, but I had vowed that I would never reveal 
my secret again, and I studied the matter over and 
over again. I wanted to tell her but my horror of 



153 



what I had gone through before, would always check 
my notion, of telling her anything about the Indians 
having me a prisoner and the renegades also. If I 
had told her all about it, she would have pitied me all 
the more, but I never told her anything about it. She 
always tried to fix me up nice when I went to the 
neighbors and when we went to church. She was 
surely a dear mother to me. I was with them three or 
four years and had a nice time all of those years with 
them. 

Up to this time I had never thought of what would 
exactly become of me, not having an education. I 
did not know very much about the world. Mrs. 
McKieffy tried to teach me as much as she could, and 
I got so I could read and write a little through her 
teaching. Of course I tried very hard to learn as I 
was getting old enough to see the need of an educa- 
tion. Mr. and Mrs. McKieffy both took a great deal 
of pride in me and sent me to school when there was 
any in session. Most all of the scholars took a great 
deal of interest in me and would help me out in my 
studies as much as they could. They would go home 
with me and stay all night and help me out with my 
lessons. That was a great help to me, as I had never 
had any early training, and of course I did not have 
much of a knack of learning after I had reached the 
age I was at that time. But it was a great help to me 



154 



to have their assistance. I got so I could help Mr. 
McKieffy quite a good deal in the field and fed the 
pigs and milked the cows and helped all I could. They 
were so good to me I could not do too much for them. 

After a time Mrs. McKieffy's sister came to pay 
her a visit and she brought one of her boys and a 
girl with her. They were so nice — the boy and the 
girl — and Mrs. McKieffy's sister was just like her. 
They both were so kind and motherly. She seemed 
to take a great pride in me too and always had some- 
thing to say to me to cheer me up. I got so I loved 
her so much that I hated to see the time come for 
them to go home. After they were gone Mrs. 
McKieffy and I would talk about what a nice visit 
we had from them. I told Mrs. McKieffy that her 
sister was so much like herself, and she told me they 
were twin sisters and were always together when 
they were growing up, and never apart. 

When they got home she wrote a long letter. She 
had a good deal to say about me and how her boy 
and girl would like to see me. She said they enjoyed 
themselves so much with me; they wondered if I 
would ever come to see them. They were dandy chil- 
dren sure, and I loved them both very much. They 
got so they could write and they wrote me a letter 
every time Mrs. McKieffy's sister would write her, 
telling me what a good time they had with me at Mr. 
McKieffy's. 



155 



CHAPTER XVII 



In return I would write them and tell them how 
much I enjoyed their visit, and that I wanted them 
to come back again and stay much longer the next 
time. Mrs. McKiefly told me she was going to pay 
her sister and family a visit next year, and that I 
could go with her and we would stay a long month 
and I could have a nice time with her sister's young 
folks. I thought that would be a grand opportunity 
to learn something of the ways of the world, which 
I had never known much about. So things went along 
very smoothly and bye and bye winter came on and 
I went to school and enjoyed myself very well. I 
learned a little, but it seemed that I could not get along 
with my studies like most of the scholars did. The 
teacher would take me to task about not learning 
faster sometimes, but I could not explain to her why 
I could not. I was glad when school was out and 
I had to stay at home and help Mr. McKieffy. 

Long after harvest Mrs. McKieffy began to get 
ready to go and visit her sister. She was always in 



156 



great glee fixing things up and getting ready to go. 
She fixed me up awfully nice. Got me a nice new- 
suit and other things until I looked, as nice as any of 
the boys in the neighborhood. The time came for 
us to start and Mr. McKieffy took us to the train. 

When the train came that took us away, Mr. 
McKieffy bid us good bye and told Mrs. McKieffy to 
be sure and bring his little man back to him. He 
patted me on the back in a very loving way,, which 
showed very plainly that he loved me as mUch as he 
could and probably as much as if I had been his own 
boy. I had always been good to him and ran and 
done the chores for him, to save him from having to 
do all of it when he was tired. I felt towards him 
as if he had been my own father. 

Well the train pulled out and we looked back at 
him and waved our handkerchiefs as we sped along. 
We had a nice journey and everything went well. 
When we arrived at the station where we got off 
Mr. and Mrs. Bomgart, (that was Mrs. McKieffy's 
sister and her husband), met us and took us home in 
a nice surrey. They seemed so glad to see us and Mr. 
Bomgart told me that his boy and girl were planning 
on having a big time with me. He said that they 
had never got through talking about me since they 
came home, and they were almost crazy when the 
letter came stating that I was coming with Mrs. 



157 



McKieffy. He said they would be wild with delight 
when we got in sight of the house. 

The weather was line; just a nice cool breeze and it 
had rained a few days before, so of course there was 
no dust to bother or annoy us as we sped along. We 
were soon in sight of the house and when we drove 
up to the gate, Tommy and Mamie were there to open 
it and when I got out of the surrey they both just 
danced around me and seemed to be tickled to death. 

I could not help noticing Mrs. McKieffy and Mrs. 
Bomgart looking at the performance of the kids. 
From that time until night they had a thousand and 
one things to show me and tell me about. They were 
so overjoyed they could not talk half fast enough, and 
they tried in every way to make it pleasant for me. 
Of course I was at an age now to take notice of every 
move and turn that came up. 

Mr. and Airs. Bomgart tried in every way to make 
it very pleasant for us and they took extra pains to 
make me enjoy myself as best I could. I have often 
wondered since why they took so much interest in 
me, but I think it was their good nature to want to 
make everybody around them have a good time and 
enjoy themselves. Tommy, Mamie and I ran the 
fields over after the pigs, calves and colts. We had 
a general good time and were generally tired out at 
night so that we slept like logs and were always glad 



158 



to go to bed.. We stayed there three or four weeks 
and had just the nicest visit. It seemed only a week. 

Tommy and Mamie said we had not stayed half 
long enough and wanted Mrs. McKieffy to stay lots 
longer. But she said Mr. McKieffy was alone and 
very lonesome and we would have to go home to him. 
So we began to get things shaped up to go home and 
when the time came to start, Mamie and Tommy had 
to go with us to the train. When the train came they 
said it would be a long time before we would get back 
again. My, but they hated to see us go, they said. 

I am quite sure they did, for the tears ran down 
both of their cheeks long before we startedjust like 
their hearts would break. Mrs. McKieffy and I both 
stuck our heads out of the car windows and waved 
our handkerchiefs at them until the train had passed 
out of sight. They also kept their handkerchiefs in 
motion as long as we could possibly see them. 

Mrs. McKieffy asked me, on the road home, if I 
had enjoyed my visit very well. I told her that I 
certainly had enjoyed every minute of it. She told 
me that Mr. Bomgart thought I was an exceptional 
boy and wished that we lived closer together, so we 
could visit each other more. He told her that Tommy 
and Mamie were always talking about Jessie. They 
both thought there was no other boy in the whole 
world like little Jessie was. When we got home Mr. 



159 



McKieffy was at the station to meet us. He was 
awfully pleased to see us and told me that he knew 
the pigs would be glad I had got home. I had tended 
them lots better than he did and he knew they would 
know the difference as quick as I got home. I always 
tended the pigs and I gave them the best of care. He 
said I should have one of the nicest ones in the pen 
for being so good to them. 

He always let me feed my horse anything I wanted 
too, and I always had him fat and sleek. 

I stayed with the McKieffy's a long time and got 
so I could help Mr. McKieffy in the field quite a lot. 
I could harrow for him and do all kinds of odd jobs. 
He told me one day he did not know how he could 
get along without me. We got along fine together. 
He was always so good to me, I always did my part 
to please him and he always remembered me when 
he went to town to bring something to please me. 
I think it done him as much good as it did me to see 
me enjoy what he brought. It done Mr. McKieffy 
good also, to have Mr. McKieffy bring me something. 
She would always say when he would start to town, 
"Now don't forget little Jessie." 



160 



CHAPTER XVIII 



He would always say, "You bet I won't," nor did 
he. I always had everything done that I could do 
when he came home, and I would run and open the gate 
for him. That pleased him to think I watched for 
him and opened the gate so he would not have to 
stop, get out and open it himself. 

Along in the fall I told Mrs. McKieffy that I wished 
Mrs. Bomgart would come and bring Tommy and 
Mamie. She asked me if I wanted to see them very 
bad, and I told her that I wanted to see them very 
much. Then she said she would write Mrs. Bomgart 
to bring them down and pay us a visit, that I wanted 
to see Tommy and Mamie. So they came on a visit 
and we had a big time. 

Mrs. Bomgart said when she got the letter that 
Tommy and Mamie would not let her rest until she 
told them she would come. Mr. McKieffy had some 
little colts and I always petted them lots. They were 
very gentle, and we played with them very often. 

161 



Mamie and Tommy thought they were just fine play 
things. We romped around all day and at night we 
were very tired and slept like logs,, but we were up 
in the morning ready for another day's chase. 

They stayed a week and Mrs. Bomgart asked me 
if I wasn't tired chasing around with Tommy and 
Mamie. I told her that I never got tired when I 
was with them.' She said that was just what they 
always said about me. She said when they were on 
a visit, after we were gone, she asked them if they 
were not glad we had gone home, so they could get a 
rest, but they said they were never tired of playing 
with me. We sure had big times. 

They finally went home and I hated to see them 
start for I knew it would be a long time before I 
would see them again. 

It was getting now nearly time for school to com- 
mence and Mr. McKieffy wanted me to help him with 
the corn gathering,as much as I could before I started 
to school. I wanted to help him as much as I could, 
too. I could shuck one row as fast as he could shuck 
two rows, so I could help him lots in the corn field. 

I finally started to school and it was a long winter 
and I got very tired of school. I was glad when 
spring came and school was out, then I could not 
learn like most of the scholars and I got discouraged 
and tired of school. 



162 



When spring opened up and school let out, Mr. 
McKieffy had some colts to break. We would hitch 
them up every day. They were very gentle, no trou- 
ble to handle and we soon had them broke to work 
and worked them in the field that summer. 

In the fall Mrs. McKieffy got very sick. I stayed 
with her nearly all the time and waited on her. She 
said so many times, that she did not know what she 
would do if it wasn't for me to wait on her. She 
got better along towards spring and we thought she 
would soon be well, but it so happened she took a 
relapse and sank very fast until death finally relieved 
her of her suffering. 

Mr. McKieffy took it very hard and it nearly 
broke my heart, for she was so good to me and always 
wanted to please me in every way she could. It 
seemed like Mr. McKieffy's heart would break. Poor 
fellow, he was nearly broke up when he lost her. My, 
but I was lost without her. She was so good and 
kind it was just like losing a mother to me. Mr. 
McKieffy was so badly broken hearted that he was 
not like the same man and got sick and said that he 
did not want to get well. Life was no pleasure to 
him anymore. He grieved for her all the time as long 
as he lived. He passed away late in the spring. Then 



163 



I was all alone again in the world. I did not know 
what to do. I stayed around the neighborhood for 
about a year ; then took a notion to go some place else ; 
so started out on my horse. 

I rode several days and it finally set in to raining 
and rained continuously for several days. I could 
not go on in the rain, so I layed over at the place I 
had stopped at last. They were very nice people and 
after it quit raining they wanted to hire me for a 
month, so I worked a month for them. During that 
month they quized me lots; asked me where I had 
been staying and who I had been at work for. I told 
them all about Mrs. McKieffy and that I had been 
with them three or four years; that they both had 
passed away or I would have been with them yet. 

When I had worked a month they wanted me to 
stay a little longer and work. So I stayed until fall; 
then I took a notion to go to some other part of the 
country, so I started on my journey again and I 
travelled several days. I came to a place and stayed 
all night, where the man had no help of any kind, 
and he wanted to know if I did not want to stay with 
him through the winter. So I thought it would be a 
good thing to hold up tor the winter, before it got too 

164 



cold, so I told him it would suit me alright as I had 
no place in view. 

He said alright and I stayed all winter with him 
and in the spring he wanted to hire me for the sum- 
mer. I had no place in view that I wanted to go to, 
so I hired out to him for all summer. He and his 
wife were ns nice as they could be, always jollying 
each other and me also. We had a good time all 
summer. I got so I hated to leave them, but he had 
no work to do any more, so he could not afford to 
hire me any longer, and by this time I began to realize 
that I wanted to be making some start in the world, 
and the only way to do it was to work all the time 
that I could. 

So I went over and tackled his brother and I told 
I could find in the way of work. I travelled several 
days and stayed all night with a man who asked me 
all about where I had been and where I had worked 
last. In the morning he told me that he had a brother 
who wanted a man to work the worst kind, and if 
I would go over and see him he would give me a job 
all winter. 

So I went over and tackled his brother and I told 
him that his brother had sent me to him; so we soon 

165 



made a bargain for the winter. They were just' fine 
people. I got acquainted with a lot of young folks 
in the neighborhood who asked me to all of their 
parties and treated me royal. I seemed to be a fav- 
orite with most of the young folks and I had a splen- 
did time all winter. I got so mixed up with young 
folks that I hated to leave them, but this man's son, 
who was off attending high school, came home and 
he did not need me anymore. He said he hated to 
have me leave the country that the young folks would 
be lost without me, and I had become one of them. 

He was an awful nice man and I hated to leave 
very bad, as I had become attached to some of the 
young ladies in the neighborhood, but I could get no 
work there, so I started out on another chase to find 
a job. I finally landed in Illinois and struck work 
there and soon got acquainted with a lot of the young 
folks. They would all ask me to their parties and 
I soon was at home with them. I had a good time. 

They were a good jolly set of young people and 
treated me royal. In this neighborhood I got ac- 
quainted with my wife. I courted her for four years 
before we were married. 

166 



I wili have to confess that I got the sweetest, dear- 
est and best little woman in the world — or at least 
that was my notion about it, and I have never changed 
my mind on this subject. We got married in 1873 
and are both living very happily together yet. 

Our children are all grown up and married, ex- 
cepting one. We had eight children born to us but 
we only raised five of them — the other three died while 
very small. The two older ones died with membran- 
ous croup — the most horrid death that could possibly 
be experienced. Both died the same week. This was 
a heart breaking experience to us. 

We had the one little baby girl left and she was 
a perfect little angel — or at least we thought so. She 
lived two years and on Friday, the same day the others 
had died, she left us. 

After that, all our children lived and are still living. 
I rented a place and worked very hard and saved my 
earnings. My wife was an extra good help mate and 
we began to accumulate right from the start. I 
worked out most of the time that I did not have to 
put in at home. I soon had about $1400 out on inter- 
est, and then I began to think about buying a little 
home, and I finally bought a S2y 2 acre tract of land 
that we made our home for five years. I got that 
paid for and got some money ahead and tried to buy 



167 



some more land, but could not get any adjoining our 
little home, so I finally sold it and went to Iowa and 
bought a 160 acre farm there and made money very 
fast. 

I got to be pretty well off but I worked very hard. 
I was very ambitious and handled lots of stock and 
broke down, so I finally concluded to rent my farm 
out and make a sale and sell off my stock, then go 
to town and try something there. 

So I had a sale and sold out everything and went 
to town. My sale was large and brought in about 
$8,000 in notes and I had about $5,000 in the bank 
at that time. But my going to town was not a suc- 
cess. I went into the grocery, boot and shoe and 
queensware business and built up a big trade in a 
short time, but I had no education and there was 
where I fell down. I ran an awful big credit busi- 
ness which was the undoing of me. 

In 1893 I went broke. I only pulled out the pitiful 
sum of $1400. I did not know what to do then. I 
was sure in a dilapidated condition, but I soon made 
up my mind to rent a farm and try the harder, so I 
rented a farm. At this time I had one boy large 
enough to plow and I hired one man and we went to 
work. Of course my former experience helped me 
a lot. I bought some hogs and a few cattle and soon 

RC 10.5 168 



had things in running order again. We made a little 
money the first year and got things in shape to begin 
to make things go a little old fashioned. 

I soon accumulated some money and I finally bought 
a tract of land and farmed it two years and made 
big crops, sold lots of hogs and a few cattle and 
finally sold the place and made two thousand dollars 
on the sale of my farm. 

That put new vim into me. Then I went to South 
Dakota and rented a whole section of fine farm land. 
At this time I had three boys of my own old enough 
to plow and do general farm work. We worked early 
and late, raised big crops and got fair prices for our 
grain. I bought a lot of cattle and made good money 
man. I finally bought a half section of good land, 
on them and soon was beginning to feel like a new 

About this time I took a notion to move to the 
State of Washington, so I had a sale and sold all my 
belongings except a half section of land which be- 
longed to my wife, and which we kept as a nest egg, 
and came to Washington. We rented a farm one year 
and then bought out a relinquishment and finally com- 
muted on it and went to work and bought land all 
around the quarter until I now have 720 acres of fine 
wheat land. I then took a notion to retire and rented 
my lands and went to Spokane and bought a lot of 
property and stayed there two years. But my renters 



169 



were doing no good for me or my land, so I moved 
back and took charge of it and am still running it 
with the aid of hired help. But I am all broken down 
and can't do very much and am contemplating closing 
up my affairs on the farm and taking it easy the rest 
of my days. 

I want to do something to help some good cause out, 
for having had very good luck, or management, which- 
ever it may be termed. With the sale of this book I 
expect to help the poor out to a considerable extent. 
I will, of course, look into the matter pretty well be- 
fore I dish out to them, for I do not want to encour- 
age idleness or hypocrites, so those who buy this book 
will only be lending a helping hand to a good cause; 
besides they will get quite an idea of Indian life and 
of the hardships of a poor prisoner, who was not 
fitted for Indian life. 

With these few remarks I will close, wishing you 
all many happy days on earth and a final resting place 
in heaven. 

THE END 



170 













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